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Chapter Text

Emma glanced around the classroom as she entered, looking for Taylor and found her sitting at a work table all by herself. Mr. Carmichael hadn't arrived yet. Perfect. Emma smirked as she sauntered over towards Taylor and sat down next to her. Emma sweetly said, "Hi Taylor. How are you doing today?"

Taylor let out a yawn before lethargically tilting her head towards Emma. She gave Emma a mildly confused look before saying, "I'm tired, I guess? Doing things is exhausting. I wonder if what's his face will notice if I take a nap." Taylor then closed her eyes and laid her face in her arms.

That... hadn't been the response Emma had been hoping for. "Aren't you going to ask how my day is going?" Emma pressed with a frown. "You wouldn't want to be rude."

"I'm cool with that," mumbled Taylor.

Emma dug her nail into Taylor's shoulder and hissed, "Well I'm not!"

Taylor let out a grumble and opened one sleepy eye. "How was your day... you?" replied Taylor, her voice filled with a combination of irritation and bafflement.

"I'm doing g-" started Emma before she stopped and stared at Taylor. "Are you pretending not to know who I am, Taylor?" demanded Emma.

"What? No. Don't be silly I know who you are," said Taylor as she gave a nervous chuckle. "You're um... Jane?"

"You think this is funny!?" growled Emma. "I am going to make you pay for this Taylor."

"That seems a bit extreme," said Taylor as she patted Emma on the shoulder placatingly. "Look... Erin? It seems like you got some anger issues to work through. You're not really mad at me but at the world or something."

"What the fuck is wrong with you!" shouted Emma as jumped to her feet. Emma slammed her hands down on the table and yelled, "Say my name right now or I'm going to make you wish you were never born!"

Taylor groaned into her arms, "Oh god, why did this nut case have to sit next to me?"

"Say my name, you bitch!"

"Man, I don't know... Erica?"

"SAY MY NAME!"

"Heisenberg?"

"SAY! MY! NAME!"

"Miss Barnes. What are you doing?" growled Mr. Carmichael.

"I uh," sputtered out a flat-footed Emma. Emma was suddenly aware that the biology teacher was in the room and that everyone in the classroom was staring at her.

"Why don't you sit at a different table Miss Barnes," said Mr. Carmichael firmly.

"But-" started Emma.

"Now. And see me after class."

Face burning, Emma moved over to a different table. As she sat down she heard Taylor mutter, "Who in the world was that?" Emma's eye twitched violently.

……

Emma didn't know what Taylor had hoped to accomplish by pretending not to know who Emma was, but Taylor was going to rue the day she tried her little plot. Emma decided to back off for a couple of weeks so that Taylor would think that she had won their last encounter, and then when she let down her guard Emma would strike.

During the two weeks Emma was not idle. She spent night and day crafting the perfect words to break Taylor. Sure, Emma missed hours of sleep and her grades slipped a little, but it would all be worth it when she saw Taylor's devastated face. When Emma was finally ready to break Taylor, she grabbed Madison and went on the hunt.

They quickly found a sleepy looking Taylor shuffling through the halls and made a beeline straight towards her. Emma slid in front of Taylor's path and said with a smirk, "Hey Taylor." Taylor came to a halt and made a choking noise. "Aw, Taylor, what's the matter? You don't look so good?"

Taylor stood there in silence, staring at Emma, eyes wide. Emma's smirk grew into full blown grin. Taylor was so terrified that she was frozen in place. Emma glanced over towards Madison and said, "You know what would make you feel better Taylor? A makeover."

"I don't know Emma, I don't think there is any fixing that face," said Madison with a sad shake of her head.

"Hmmm. I guess you're right Mads," said Emma as she watched eagerly for a reaction from Taylor. However, Taylor's face didn't even twitch and that wide stare was starting to creep Emma out.

Frustrated, Emma and Madison kept ratcheting up the intensity of their insults as they tried to get a reaction out of Taylor besides her weird stare. After several frustrating minutes of no reaction, Taylor made another odd choking sound after Emma used a particularly nasty insult that took her three hours to come up with. Success!

"What's the matter? You going to cry for a whole week?" said Emma with a manic grin as she executed her coup de grace.

Taylor's mouth fell open and Emma grinned with anticipation, ready for the look of hurt and betrayal to pass over Taylor's face. Only for the sound of snoring to come out of Taylor's mouth.

Emma's smile died an ugly death, and she said, "Taylor I know you're awake, your eyes are wide open." Taylor just kept on snoring. "Stop ignoring me Taylor!"

Madison stepped forward and waved her hand in front of Taylor's face before flicking her nose. Taylor didn't react at all. "I think might she really be asleep Ems."

"Are you fucking kidding me," groused Emma as she stepped forward and examined Taylor's face. "I know you're faking it Taylor! Taylor! Taylor! Answer me damn it!"

Emma gave Taylor's shoulder a light shove, causing Taylor to stop snoring and mumble, "Ten more minutes Dad." She then immediately went back to snoring even louder than before.

As Emma glared at Taylor she heard Madison let out a giggle behind her. Was that bitch laughing at her! Emma rounded on Madison and snarled, "Is something fucking funny!?"

Madison paled and quickly said, "No."

Emma turned back to Taylor and growled, "Taylor stop it with this bullshit already! Nobody is falling for it! I said stop it!" Taylor made a loud snorting sound and drool started to run out of her mouth. Taylor was actually asleep. Taylor was sleeping through Emma's moment of victory. That was unacceptable.

"Taylor wake up!" demanded Emma. "I said wake up!" Emma shoved Taylor again but harder this time. Taylor fell over and slammed into the ground with a loud thunk but the bitch didn't wake up. She just lay there on the ground mocking Emma with her snoring.

"Wake up!" Emma nudged Taylor with her foot. Nothing. Furious Emma nudged her even harder only causing Taylor to roll over and start sucking her thumb. Emma let out a shriek of frustration and kicked her.

Madison opened her stupid fat fucking mouth and said, "Uh Emma-"

"Shut the fuck up and help me!" screamed Emma as she kicked Taylor again. "Wake up you bitch!"

"What are you doing!" yelled a woman. Emma looked up and saw Mrs. Knott staring at Emma in horror and Madison had at some point backed up several feet away from Emma and Taylor.

"Emma went crazy and attacked Taylor. I tried to stop here!" exclaimed Madison with tears in her eyes. "I was so scared she was going to hurt me to."

That bitch! Mrs. Knott grabbed Emma's arm and angrily said, "We are going to Principal Blackwell. Madison, get Taylor to the nurse's office."

As Emma was dragged away she could only watch Taylor peacefully snoozing. Damn her.

…

Emma ended up getting suspended for two weeks for beating Taylor 'unconscious'. Emma had to put up with two weeks of her Mom and Dad giving her disappointed looks while Taylor was no doubt laughing it up. And to make matters even worse when Emma returned to Winslow Madison had supplanted her as the queen bee. That backstabbing bitch! This was all Taylor's fault. Emma hated her. Hated her!

Now only Sophia had Emma's back; only she was willing to help her in her campaign against Taylor, which wasn't going well at all. Every time they tripped or shoved Taylor, she would just shrug her shoulders and take a nap there on the floor. Insults slid off Taylor like water on an incredibly sleepy duck's back. Emma didn't know what caused this change in Taylor's behavior, but she hated it.

"Sophia, we have to come up with something to crush Taylor! We can't let her get away with... with whatever the fuck she is trying to pull!" hissed Emma.

Sophia shook her head and said, "Look Emma maybe we should just move on. Taylor might be prey, but she is a sloth okay? She moves so little that she is covered in moss that she uses as... what's the word?" Sophia paused before she snapped her fingers and continued, "Camouflage. She uses moss as camouflage against predators like you and me."

Emma stared at her incredulously and said, "Sophia you need to watch other channels other than Animal Planet." Emma ignored Sophia as she muttered to herself about heretics and blasphemous fools and said, "We have to come up with something so awful and fucked up that she can't ignore it."

Sophia sat in silence with a thoughtful look on her face before saying, "Well the natural predator of a sloth is a jaguar. So, if we acquire one and-"

"God damn it, we are not getting a jaguar!" yelled Emma as she pulled her hair in frustration.

"Well I suppose an ocelot would work," said Sophia with a shrug.

Emma buried her face in her hands and counted to ten before saying, "We are not going to attack Taylor with jungle cats."

"Fine," said Sophia sulkily, "then how about we fill her locker with used hygiene products before winter break and then shove in on her first day back."

"What the fu- you know what? Let's do that," said Emma as she threw arms into the air. "I don't even care anymore!"

To Emma's annoyance Taylor was late for school the day of the prank. It was ten minutes after first period and Emma hadn't spotted hide nor hair of Taylor. "Where is she?!" hissed Emma with her fists clenched.

Sophia shrugged and said, "She probably skipped. She has been doing that a lot lately. We should head to class before somebody notices."

"No. We can't let her win," said Emma as she glared at the locker.

"Look Emma, I explained it before, we can't beat her sloth powers," said Sophia with a shake of her head.

Emma took a deep breath and closed her eyes before saying, "Just. Just go ahead to class Sophia. I got this handled."

Ten minutes after Sophia shrugged and walked off Taylor came ambling down the hall at a sedate pace. Well at least the halls were empty, so nobody could rat Emma out for what was about to happen next. Emma snuck up behind Taylor as she opened her locker. "Huh," said Taylor as she stared at the inside of her defiled locker. "Well that's a thing. I wonder if I can use this as an excuse to get out of class."

"God damn it Taylor!" Emma yelled. "Be upset about this, you dumb bitch!"

"That seems rather uncalled for," said Taylor with raised eyebrows as she turned towards Emma. "I mean what have I ever done to you? I don't even know you."

Emma let out a feral noise before she lunged forward and shoved Taylor into the locker. As Taylor fell backward into her locker she let out a bored, "Welp." Emma quickly slammed the locker door before Taylor had time to escape.

"This is what you get for trying to stand up to me Taylor," said Emma with a manic smile. "Maybe if you beg me I'll let you out." However, Emma was only greeted with silence before the sound of gentle snoring started to come out of the locker. What. No. No. No. Snarling, Emma wrenched the locker door back open and found Taylor sleeping.

"You motherfucker! You think this is funny!?" screamed Emma. Taylor responded by snuggling deeper into the filth. Something snapped in Emma and her vision became tinted with red. Emma let a shrill noise of pure rage before she wrapped her hands around Taylor's throat.

Taylor's eyes slid open with disinterest and she said, "Hrgkl?"

"Not laughing now are you Taylor?! No, because it's me that is laughing now," Emma said before she started giggling hysterically. "I win Taylor! I win!" Taylor made a halfhearted swipe at Emma's arm before giving a shrug and promptly falling back asleep. "Did you fall back asleep!? What the fuck is wrong with you!? Don't you get it Taylor?! I am going to kill you! This is me killing you right here and now! I'm-"

Emma was interrupted as she was pulled away from Taylor and she heard Principal Blackwell hiss, "Miss Barnes. My. Office. Now."

"No! I can't let her win!" yelled Emma as she tried to reach Taylor's throat with her flailing arms, but she couldn't break out of Blackwell's grip.

Blackwell responded by dragging Emma down the hall. "No! No!" screamed Emma as she fought back. "I am going to destroy you Taylor! I am never going to stop! Do you hear me! Never! Never! Never!"

Chapter Text

Alec grumbled to himself as he made his way to the supermarket by foot. Because Brian and Lisa each had their own apartments and Rachel was... well Rachel, it fell on him to go buy the groceries if he wanted to eat. Well, he supposed he could go out to eat instead but in the end that took way more effort than going to the supermarket every once in a while. With a sigh he walked through the front doors of the supermarket and was met with an unusual sight.

There appeared to be a girl made of bugs loudly crying and a supermarket employee trying to calm her down. She opened her mouth and wailed. It was probably one of the most disturbing sounds that Alec had ever heard, and Alec had experienced his childhood.

The bug girl managed to choke out some words through her tears. "Where am I supposed to go!? No one will let me into any of their stores. I need to eat to you know! Do you want me to live off garbage!? I can't believe that you would treat a Case 53 like this! Just because I look like a monster does not mean I am any less human! Why won't anybody help me!?" At that point she stopped talking and broke down completely, sobbing tears of maggots.

Alec watched in amusement as a manager ran over and said, "I'm sorry for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, we can't allow you to walk around the building due to health reasons, but we are more than willing to help you by making a list of things that you need and we can bring them outside for you. I'll even give you a discount for your trouble."

"R-really?" sniffled the bug girl, her voice buzzing and wobbling. She reached out to hug the manager, but he flinched away, causing her to shrink into herself. She then pulled out some tissues from her stomach and started to loudly blow her 'nose' causing bugs to go flying everywhere.

Alec shrugged his shoulders — wasn't his problem — and went about doing his own shopping. Although he was a little jealous. He wished that he could have the store do all of his shopping for him. That would be so sweet. When Alec finished his shopping and made his way past the bug girl, who was still waiting outside for her groceries, he came to a sudden stop. He just came up with the best idea ever and he was not going to let it slip him by. He walked over to bug girl and stuck his hand out and said "Hi. I'm Alec."

She gave a start of surprise, causing her whole body to lose its shape for a second before she resolidified. She turned towards him and stared down at his hand before raising her own hand made of various insects and shook his hand. Alec forced himself not to notice the bugs writhing against his palm and asked, "So what's your name then?"

"Um it's… Anne. Nice to meet you? Is there something you wanted?" she buzzed at him in confusion.

"Well you see the thing is I saw how you got them to do your shopping for you and I want in on that action. I am total willing to pay you fifty bucks to do my shopping for me," he explained.

She let out a snort and said, "Seriously? I mean I can understand hating going out and buying groceries, it takes so much god damn work. I only do it because my dad always comes back from work late and there is nothing to eat if I don't do the shopping."

Alec blinked and said, "Wait aren't you supposed to be a Case 53. How do you have a dad?"

Every bug on her froze for a second before they started buzzing in agitation. "I, uh... was adopted?"

Alec laughed and said with a wink, "Sure, you were. Sure, you were. So about you getting my groceries, what do you say?"

"Make it a hundred," she said annoyed.

"Deal," Alec said quickly. "So, do you have a way for me to contact you?"

She hesitated for a second before shrugging and giving him her phone number. She then asked, "So where am I dropping off your groceries anyway?"

'Damn it.' Alec hadn't thought this through all the way. He guessed that he could set up a drop off location, but that sounded like way too much work and would defeat the entire purpose of avoiding having to go out and do errands. He pulled out some paper and scribbled down the loft's address and said, "I call you in about a week. Just bring it up here." He gave her a wave goodbye and left with a skip to his step.

…

Alec heard the sound of thundering on the stairs coming up to the loft a moment before Lisa called out "Alec! Rachel! Lung is out looking for us and we need to talk about a game plan!" Fuck. Alec totally didn't want to deal with a giant rage dragon. He would have to get up off the couch and everything. Lisa and Brian appeared at the top of the stairs and then froze. Lisa exclaimed as she pointed next to him, "Who the fuck is she!"

Alec looked at Anne before shrugging and said, "This is Anne. She has been buying my groceries for the last couple of weeks."

Lisa buried her head in her hands and groaned. Brian shouted, "Alec are you fucking kidding me! You can't just go inviting people up here, because you are too fucking lazy to go shopping."

Alec waved his hand lazily and said, "Relax. She's cool."

Anne nodded her head and said, "Cool like a cucumber. Also, if I ratted you guys out I would be down a hundred every couple of weeks. And there is no reward for turning you in. Trust me, I checked."

Brian just stared at her while Lisa said with a sigh, "Look we don't have time to deal with her, Lung and his entire gang is currently gunning for us and we need a plan of action right now. I was thinking that we should confront Lung, but we need to decide this as a group. Also, where is Rachel?"

"Out walking her dogs? How the hell should I know?" said Alec flippantly.

"Wait," Anne spoke up, her voice bored, "Lung knows where the loft is?"

Brian growled at her, "No, it's supposed to be a secret, right Alec."

"Get off my dick Brian," said Alec with disinterest.

Anne spoke up again, "So if Lung has no idea where your base is what is the problem? What is he going to do, write you an angry letter?"

Alec snorted and drawled, "Dear Undersiders, I am super pissed. Rawr, I am a dragon. Love, Lung."

"Shut up Alec this is serious, Lisa thinks he is going to try burning down the surrounding area in the hopes of smoking us out." Brian said glaring at Alec.

"Wow, that is a terrible plan," said Anne with a shake of her head. "I mean aren't the super cops going to show up to stop him? I can't imagine he would go get very far before they are right up his asshole."

Lisa made a face of disgust and said, "Really? Look if word gets out that Lung burned down this part of town to get back at us, people will blame us and cause the local cape scene to pay more attention to us than we can afford."

Anne rolled her eyes and said, "So the best idea you can come up with is to run up and punch him in the face? I mean, won't a fight just start a large fire and burn down a whole bunch of buildings anyway? So, no matter what people are going to point their fingers at you."

Alec watched in amusement as Lisa rubbed her forehead and argued, "A fight would make it so less fire would be spread around before the Protectorate would show up and put it out."

"Alright so just call the cops on him now before he even gets going," said Anne with a shrug.

"Would that work?" asked Alec, his voice laced with laughter.

"I- maybe," said Lisa. "Give me a few minutes, I need to talk to the boss." Lisa walked out of the room for five minutes and came back in. "So apparently that worked. Armsmaster just captured Lung."

"See, what did I tell you? Right up his asshole," said Anne smugly.

"Well that was easy," said Alec with a shrug before turning back to the TV.

After a minute of Lisa and Brian standing there awkwardly as he and Anne watched TV, Anne spoke up, "I just had a thought, you guys are thieves, right? So if Lung is out of commission and his men are out looking for you, why don't you just hit his headquarters and steal everything?"

Everyone stared at her in silence, before Alec spoke up and said, "I vote for that plan."

…

As the Undersiders were counting their loot from their biggest score ever, Alec leaned back in his new la-z-boy and said, "Hey Anne want to join the Undersiders?"

"I don't know," she said, "if I become a villain I probably couldn't send my bugs to buy my groceries anymore."

Alec nodded his head in understanding and said, "Fair enough."

Lisa sighed as she shook her head and said, "You two are unbelievable. Before you make a decision how about hearing my sales pitch first?"

Anne shrugged her shoulders and said, "Sure, why not."

Chapter Text

"Pull up your socks, boys and girl, because we're robbing a bank," said Lisa.

"Whoa whoa whoa," Taylor said while she kept her eyes fixed on the television screen, game controller in her hands. Playing Mario Kart. In first place. Refuses to be distracted and let Alec win. Lisa resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her power. "That is not what I agreed to when I joined the Undersiders. I joined so I could be paid two thousand a month to veto jobs."

Alec burst out laughing, almost dropping his controller, and said, "Holy shit, can we do that?"

"No, we can't do that," said Lisa irritated. Coil would shoot her in the face.

"I don't see why not," said Taylor as she crossed the finish line. She stuck out her tongue and smirked at Alec. She finally deigned to pay attention to Lisa and said, "You told me the deal was that we would be paid two thousand dollars a month and that we get to choose to accept jobs that come along. Nowhere during your sales pitch did you say that we have to meet some sort of quota." Alec started up another game and Taylor returned her focus to the screen.

"Look, if we stop doing any work then the Boss will stop paying to have us on retainer," explained Lisa.

"Also, I can't support myself and my sister on two grand a month," chimed in Brian, her only sane teammate.

"Or take care of my dogs," growled Rachel, her less than sane teammate.

Taylor groaned in irritation as Alec passed her and replied, "Look, Lisa has the knowy thing power, right? So, we turn down jobs until the Boss catches on and while we are doing that we just have Lisa invest a portion of our pay into the stock market and have her use her powers to make us money. We could easily make ten grand a month each and nobody would notice since that is chump change."

"You just want me- OH GROSS!" exclaimed Lisa.

"What?" asked Taylor, "I need my hands free to play." She currently had a burger suspended in front of her face by spider string held up by a swarm of flies.

"You could have had your bugs use the controller!" Lisa said trying not to gag as she tried to get her power to shut up about how disgusting that burger was.

"Lisa, then I would get bug germs all over Alec's controllers. That would be gross and rude," said Taylor as if Lisa was being the ridiculous one here. Is fucking with me. No shit, power. No shit.

"Yeah Lisa, be respectful of other people's property," Alec said with a snicker.

Lisa felt a headache starting to grow that had nothing to do with her power. She decided to change the subject back to what they were talking about earlier. "You just want me to do all the work and get paid for doing absolutely nothing yourself."

Taylor let out a dramatic gasp, "Lisa, how could you?! I would never do that!" Is a lying liar that lies.

Lisa gave her a flat look, "You are so full of shit."

Taylor gave a sniffle and whined, "Brian, make Lisa stop being mean to me."

Brian sighed and said, "Look Lisa, Taylor actually has a point. Having you invest and manage our money is frankly safer and would make us more money than robbing a bank ever would." Great, now she lost her last teammate to insanity. What couldn't these people just be reasonable and help her rob a bank?

"Also, a lot less work," added Taylor.

"Look, the Boss really wants us to do this job," said Lisa.

Taylor rolled her eyes and said, "Well I really don't want to do it. Face it Lisa, it's a dumb idea. It would take you so much more effort to plan a bank heist then spend an hour a day managing our money. We could also do some easy jobs to keep our Boss happy if we really need to."

"Since I would be doing all of the work in your plan, why should I bother with you guys at all. I could manage money for myself just fine," said Lisa, annoyance coloring her voice.

"Don't be greedy Lisa," scolded Taylor.

Alec nodded and said, "Lisa, there is no I in team."

"You guys are the worst," groused Lisa. They really are.

Taylor huffed, "Look we would be your bodyguards okay? If anyone tried to fuck with you, we would keep you safe." Thinks that you would never be in any danger and all she would have to do is sit around and play video games. Doesn't know that Coil is a total douche bag.

If Taylor had bothered to look at Lisa she would have seen the ominous vulpine smile appear on her face. Lisa said in a sickeningly sweet voice, "That is great plan, let's do it." If Coil came knocking she would just blame all of this on Taylor. Totally fair.

"So, dork, you thought of a cape name yet?" asked Alec, since the subject was clearly over.

"I was thinking Tailor since I can weave webs and shit. Also, that way I wouldn't have to bother remembering it," replied Taylor, causing Brain to facepalm.

As Lisa watched Alec and Taylor high-five she thought, 'Thank God those two are too lazy to ever breed with each other.'

Chapter Text

Brian entered the loft to find Taylor and Alec once again slacking off on the couch, watching some movie. "Where's Lisa? I need to talk to her," asked Brian. Due to their recent change in management Brian really needed to speak with Lisa about the details of gaining custody over Aisha.

"Why would we know?" asked Taylor with disinterest.

"The two of you are supposed to be her bodyguards remember? Your job is knowing where she is," pointed out Brian with a sigh.

"You don't know and you're also her bodyguard," argued Alec.

Much to Brian's annoyance and embarrassment he had no real counter to that. Day one and they were already off to an excellent start. "We really need to be more organized about this. Set up a schedule of rotating shifts," he muttered.

Taylor rolled her eyes and said, "We are a bunch of nobodies. Who would even want to pick a fight with us?"

"The ABB. Our pseudo ex-boss," pointed out Brian. Hopefully their ex-boss wasn't going to seek revenge but it was better to prepare for the worst. "Anybody that has ever talked to you for more than five seconds."

"Shots fired," said Alec with smirk.

Taylor pouted and said, "That was uncalled for. I mean sure I have only have had two friends my entire life and one of them tried to strangle me to death." Brian found that he was completely unsurprised by this information. "And sure, Rachel sicced her dogs on me on the first day we met and the day after that... and the day after that and-"

"You really need to stop using her dogs as foot rests," said Brian with a sigh.

Taylor ignored his sensible advice and continued, "-the day after that. The point is, plenty of people like me. For instance, Alec and um... hmm... my dad? I am pretty sure he would be sad if I was dead."

Brian opened his mouth and paused as tried to decide how to respond to that. Wait. "Taylor, I am pretty sure you haven't left the loft since you started working with us," said Brian slowly.

"Stairs are exhausting," replied Taylor with a tired sigh.

"Don't you think that your dad will be worried that you haven't come home for over a week?" pointed out Brian. God, she was bad as Aisha.

"Oh yeah," said Taylor with a frown. "Hey Alec, can I borrow your phone?" Alec shrugged and tossed her his phone. "Thanks," said Taylor as she fiddled with the phone. "Hey Dad, just letting you know I am not dead.

"Dad calm down, I'm fine I just got a little sidetracked again. Hey, I only fell asleep in a ditch that one-time Dad, it's not like I make it a habit or anything. Okay two times. Look, look I am perfectly safe. I have been crashing at the lair of some super villains," said Taylor nonchalantly. God damn it Taylor. Never mind, she was way worse than Aisha. Brian vowed to never let the two of them meet.

"Calm down they're cool. No, they aren't keeping me hostage in fact I joined up with them. Dangerous? Nah. Here is the thing, we are so small time nobody knows who we are, so I am being paid to sit around and play games all day. Ten thousand a month. I know right? I don't know, I'll ask."

Taylor turned to Brian and asked, "Hey Brian, do we have a dental plan?"

"We're a group of super villains, we don't even have a health plan," said Brian levelly as he tried to force himself not to yell at her.

Taylor turned back to the phone and said, "We apparently don't even have a health plan. Can we really unionize with only four people? Uh Huh. I see. Hmmm. Makes sense. You're right, I should do that. Okay okay, I'll get my friend to walk me home tonight. Love you too." Taylor put the phone down and said, "Hey guys we should form a union and extort some sweet sweet benefits from Lisa."

"Sounds like a plan," said Alec with a smirk. "I can't wait to see her face."

Brian felt like he should probably put a stop to this before it got out of hand, but on the other hand, having a health plan was tempting. "We could probably ask Lisa for a health plan without having to form a union."

"Maybe she will. Maybe she won't. But what about things like paid holidays, vacation and sick leave? I noticed we also don't have a 401k or an IRA plan. When you think about it, she is taking advantage of us Brian. That's why we need to unify now and form the Guild of Calamitous Intent!" said Taylor with more passion than Brian had ever heard from her in his entire life.

It was times like this that Brian was glad he was no longer the leader of the Undersiders and that it would be Lisa who would have to deal with this nonsense. "Fine, mark me down as unopposed," Brian said with a sigh. He really didn't feel like getting dragged into another ridiculous argument with Taylor.

"Good enough," said Taylor. "Now all we need is to get Rachel on board, wherever she is. Also, when Lisa does show up let me do all the talking. I grew up in a union family, so I know the fine art of negotiating. All I need is the right opening, execute a power move and we're golden."

There were many things Brian could have said to that but instead he chose to sit down and watch whatever movie was on the tv. After about half an hour Lisa came up the stairs with one of Rachel's dogs looking stressed. "Guys, Rachel's been captured," said Lisa with scowl.

"Why would anybody even want Rachel?" asked Taylor, "she is just so Rachel."

"Not now Taylor," snapped Brian. "How do you know that she was kidnapped?"

"Somebody tied a ransom note to her dog's collar," explained Lisa. "They even did the cut up letters from a magazine thing." Lisa paused before she facepalmed. "Oh god damn it. These are from old Nintendo Power magazines."

Alec burst out laughing and said, "Oh man, I am going to give Rachel so much shit for getting captured by Uber and Leet."

Brian ignored Alec and asked, "What do they want?"

"They say they want us to show up at the train yard with ten thousand, but I am 80% certain that this is a trap," replied Lisa. "But since they're idiots I'm not too worried about springing the trap. All right guys time to get suited up."

"Do we have to?" whined Taylor. "I mean sure we could walk all the way over there and then beat them up or we just pretend we never got the note and maybe they'll get tired of Rachel after a few days and they let her go because they don't kill people. If you think about it that is the responsible thing to do since we aren't getting into super fist fights."

"We are not doing that," said Lisa firmly. "Get in to costume. Now."

Taylor let a pitiful whining noise and said, "I don't wanna."

Lisa looked like she was going to explode when Alec raised his hand and said, "Don't worry, I got this. Taylor, if we wait a week then you can't ride her dogs to and from your dad's house today. Instead you have to walk all the way there and all the way back. The walk to the Trainyard is a quarter of the distance."

"Lisa, why are you even arguing about this with me when we need to go save our friend Rachel right now!" yelled Taylor as she jumped to her feet and ran towards the door.

Lisa buried her face in her hands,groaning, and said, "Taylor you need to get in costume."

Taylor skidded to a halt and said, "Oh yeah." Taylor reached into the pocket of her hoodie and pulled out a paper bag before she shook it out and pulled it over her face. "Done."

"Taylor, you can't just wear a paper bag over your head," said Brian.

"Brian don't use my civilian name while I am in costume," scolded Taylor. "My cape name is Tailor remember?"

Brian was done, this was Lisa's problem now. Brian walked back to his room and quickly changed before meeting up with the team at the entrance of their base. As they walked to the Trainyard Lisa and Taylor started to bicker about something again, but Brian refused to be dragged into another one of their fights. After years of practice tuning out Aisha's antics, ignoring his obnoxious teammates was pedestrian. 'It would have been nice if one of his team mates was vaguely normal,' Brian thought wistfully.

Taylor and Lisa were so engrossed in whatever they were arguing about that Brian had to clear his throat loudly to alert them to the fact that they were at the trainyard. Lisa let out an embarrassed cough and said, "Taylor use your bugs to scout out the area."

"Give me five minutes," said Taylor as she closed her eyes. "There are two guys in that building there," she said pointing at the building in front of them. "They have a floaty ball thing, so I think that is Uber and Leet. There a girl in a building over there hanging from the ceiling with six guys taking turns beating the shit out of her."

"Okay so we found Rachel and… wait how do you know what gender they- oh gross!" said Lisa in disgust as Taylor waggled her eyebrows. "Anyway. We should be able to quickly grab Rachel before we come back around to- what is it Taylor?"

"One more thing there is like sixty to seventy other people armed with all sorts of stuff hiding out behind the building, but I am sure that isn't related."

"What," said Brian in a flat voice.

"They also have a jeep with a… cannon or something? There is one chick with a couple bandoleers of grenades, maybe? There is also a whole bunch of probably grenades in the jeep as well."

"Taylor… I… you know what never mind. Shut up so I can think," said Lisa. After a moment she said, "I am pretty sure that is Bakuda and she is here to get back at us for the whole Lung in jail thing."

"She plans on killing us in retribution, right?" asked Taylor with a frown.

"Well, she is planning on torturing and then killing us but failing that just blowing us up," replied Lisa. Joy.

Taylor hummed to herself right before the loudest and oddest series of noises went off in the distance as a giant multicolored plume of smoke rose into the sky. "What the hell just happened?!" Brian half asked, half demanded to know.

Taylor replied, "Popped all the pins in Bakuda's grenades and the grenades in her jeep."

"So, she's dead?" asked Alec with disinterest.

"I think so," said Taylor with a bored shrug. "I mean it is a little hard to tell since the area where she used to be is... like a bubble of nonexistence or something? Unfortunately, I only got twenty of her goons in the blast, but it seems like the rest of them are running for the hills."

Another loud explosion come from the building in front of them. "I just had my bugs fiddle with the insides of Leet's stuff since they're famously volatile. I am like ninety percent both Uber and Leet are dead or will be in the next few minutes. Which brings my kill count up to 27 people. By the way, what's your guy's kill count?" asked Taylor.

"Just the one," said Alec.

"What? Only one? That is so lame Alec. I have been doing this villain thing for like two weeks and my kill count is almost thirty times as big as yours. That is just embarrassing," said Taylor as she shook her head. It was at that moment that Brian released that the psycho loose cannon teammate that they all needed to keep an eye on was no longer Rachel.

Lisa's mouth open and closed repeatedly for a few seconds before she seemed to collect herself and said, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"See, even Lisa thinks your kill count is weak," said Taylor.

"I am talking about you!" snapped Lisa.

"Is this not about getting everybody in the blast? Because if it is I'll have you know it is hard to aim explosions with bugs," said Taylor defensively.

"No. She means that it is fucked up that you just killed thirty people and are bragging about it," said Brian as he slowly creeped away from Taylor, trying not to make any sudden movements.

"What? That doesn't make any sense we're super villains, we kill people all the time," protested Taylor.

"No, we don't!" shouted Lisa. "Weren't you listening when I was explaining how we operate or the unwritten rules to you!"

"I am going to be honest here and say that I probably wasn't listing at the time," said Taylor with a shrug. "That or I was asleep with my eyes open again."

"Let's just go get Rachel," Lisa said with a defeated sigh. "And for the love of God Taylor, ask before you go on another killing spree."

Taylor pouted before she suddenly brightened, sending a chill down Brian's spine, and said, "Oh that reminds me we started a union and if you don't meet our demands we will go on strike."

Brian pretended not to notice the betrayed look Lisa sent him and headed towards where Rachel was being held. "Go on strike? Taylor, you barely do anything already," Lisa said with a scoff.

"Well alright Lisa," Taylor agreed, sending off all sorts of alarm bells in Brian's head. Taylor literally argued with Lisa about everything. "But when I get tooth decay it will be on your head."

Lisa rolled her eyes and said, "I think I can live with that."

Taylor nodded and said with a sad expression, "I just hope that the pain won't cause me to snap and go on another killing spree." Jesus Christ.

"Taylor, you can't honestly expect me to believe that you…" Lisa started to say before she trailed of and lost all the color in her face.

"What can't you believe about me Lisa?" asked Taylor with her most innocent expression.

Lisa paused before saying with a defeated voice, "What is it you want?"

As Taylor began to layout her demands Brian kicked open the door of the building and proceeded to beat the shit out of the people holding Rachel hostage. Their screams of pain where a balm on the soul after spending hours in Taylor's company. Brian quickly got Rachel down from the ceiling and asked, "Do you need help walking?"

"No," said Rachel curtly.

"Hey Rachel, I need to use your dogs as a ride to my dad's house," Taylor said cheerfully.

"No."

"But-"

"No."

"I-"

"No," said Rachel before stomping off.

"Does this mean I did all that extra walking for no reason," said Taylor with a dazed expression.

"Yep," said Alec with an amused grin.

Taylor fell to her knees in despair. "Carry me."

"You're on your own Tay."

"Fuck."

Chapter Text

Thomas watched the Undersiders splutter awake as his men emptied buckets of water on them. Thomas took his favorite dramatic pose, and with his best menacing voice said, "Undersiders, it seems that you thought you could get away with betraying… why is she still unconscious? How many drugs are in her system?" The newest Thinker and Undersider, Tailor, was snoring loudly, which really took the wind out of Thomas's sails. 'Do you know how hard it is to properly menace people while they're asleep?'

"None, sir," replied Minor. "She was already asleep when we raided their base and didn't wake up on the return trip, so we didn't even bother drugging her." Thomas raised a skeptical eyebrow at his minion before remembering that he was in a different timeline, safely at home. Thomas raised a skeptical eyebrow at his minion before remembering he was wearing a mask. Goddamnit. How in the world did she sleep through a raid and a kidnapping?

Tattletale let out an exasperated sigh, "Goddamnit Tailor. Worst bodyguard ever."

"Minor," said Thomas as he motioned towards Tailor.

Minor slugged Tailor across the face, causing her to sleepily mumble, "Cut it out Emma I'm trying to sleep." Thomas let out a growl and Minor punched her again, finally causing Tailor to wake up. "Hey this isn't the couch, where am I?" she mumbled in confusion as she looked around. "Is this one of those sex dungeons?"

"What? No," said Thomas, taken aback. "Do you not know who I am?" Thomas kept a low profile, but surely she'd researched the local cape scene after joining the Undersiders. Anything else would idiotic.

"Cobra Commander?" she guessed, causing Regent and Trickster to snicker. Her eyes were sleepy and vacant. Never mind, she was in fact an idiot.

"My name is Coil," he snapped. He looked towards Tattletale and said, "Why in the world did you recruit this imbecile?" Thomas could see why having a Thinker that could detect everything within two blocks would be useful, but Tailor seemed like more trouble then she was worth.

"It seems like a good idea at the time," Tattletale said mournfully. "I think we all regret that decision now."

"I don't," said Regent, "she's hilarious."

"Shut up Regent," growled Grue. Honestly, this was what Thomas got for hiring teenagers. What had he been thinking?

"Be quiet," commanded Thomas. All this inane chatter caused him to forget what he was trying to say in the first place. "Undersiders, it seems that you thought you could get away with betraying me and-"

"Betray you? I don't even know you," replied a baffled Tailor.

"Yeah," chimed in Regent. "This is complete bullshit!"

Thomas resisted the urge to shoot them in the face and said through gritted teeth, "I am your employer. You tried to con me out of my money and lost me a valuable parahuman asset."

"Hey, it's your fault for leaving giant loopholes in your deals, not ours," protested Tailor.

"I don't think you understand the situation you're in," he said, irritation coloring his voice. "You're dozens of feet under concrete and steel, surrounded by my men who will kill you without hesitation on my command." Thomas motioned towards to the Travelers and his mercenaries. "You are completely at my mercy and your fate rests in my hand." It was at that point that he noticed that Tailor's head was drooping, with her mouth hanging slightly open. "Did she just fall asleep again?!"

"Looks like it," said an amused Trickster.

"She does that," said Tattletale with a sigh.

Thomas saw red and without even thinking about it closed the timeline and reopened a new one before blowing her brains out. Thomas let out a sigh of contentment before closing the timeline and reopening it. Worth it.

"Wake her up now," he said through gritted teeth, "And make sure she stays awake." Minor dutifully seized Tailor's hair and pulled hard.

"Ow! Son of a bitch!" howled Tailor before she turned a baleful eye towards Minor. "What's your problem, you dick?! Some of us are trying to sleep around here!"

"That is exactly the problem!" hissed Thomas. "If I so much as hear a snore come out of your mouth again, I am putting a bullet through your head!"

Tailor opened her mouth but paused before spewing any more of her verbal diarrhea. Good that meant she was finally afrai-. "Eh at least I won't be awake anymore, so I'll count that as a win," she said with a shrug.

This Bitch! Thomas let out a scream of rage and shot her in her stupid smug face . Thomas stared at her, let out a deep breath, and said, "Very well then, I will have Minor cut off your eyelids so that you can't fall asleep ever again."

Tailor looked at him with terror in her eyes and said, "You monster! You'll never get away with this!"

Thomas smirked. That was more like it. "That's where you're wrong. I control destinies. I decide outcomes. Let me demonstrate. Observe." Since he'd already exposed himself to danger by using his timeline to shoot Tailor he might as well do the coin trick. After all he hadn't spent hours practicing in front of the mirror not to use it.

"Gasp! You have the power to control how coins flip!" Tailor said dramatically. "I bet you use that to cheat on bets all the time! You dastardly fiend! Truly I am in the presence of greatness!"

"That's… no," said Thomas flustered. "I control destiny, not coin flips."

"Are you sure?" asked a puzzled Tailor, "Because it seems to me that you are controlling the coin flips, which, don't get me wrong, is totally rad and all, but I think you got the words coins and destiny mixed up in your head. Don't worry, it happens all the time to me."

"Oh my god she is amazing," said Trickster in awe.

Tailor puffed up and said smugly, "I am amazing, aren't I? Just for that you will be spared from my vengeance."

"Thanks, I appreciate it," said an amused Trickster.

Thomas raised his hand to shoot her when he felt searing pain spread all around his body, and he let out a scream. His men and the Travelers started to scream in pain as well, except for Trickster who looked alarmed and confused. Thomas felt his conscious slipping awa-  What the fuck just happened? Thomas stared at Tailor in shocked silence; her once vacant eyes now seemed cold and empty of anything remotely human. Thomas felt a chill go up his spine.

"Tailor, what is your power?" demanded Thomas.

"Huh? I'm a thinker. I can sense-" started Tailor.

"Don't lie to me!" screamed Thomas. "I know you can do more than that!"

Tailor blinked at him sleepily with growing smile. "Like this?" Thomas felt a searing pain-.

"Are we having a staring contest or something? Because I can't tell with your mask," asked Tailor.

Thomas hesitated, not wanting to provoke her in both timelines. "Uh no." Thomas's mind raced. Tattletale must have lied to him about Tailor's power. Tailor seemed to be some kind of Shaker? Did her power merely incapacitate through pain or did it kill? Was it line of sight or did she actually have a Thinker power that let her see through walls?

"Hey, you okay over there, Boss?" asked Tattletale, who was staring far too intently at Thomas than he would have liked.

Thomas stood up and said "I will be back in a moment" before he left the room with a forced calm. When the door closed behind him, Thomas quickly ordered into his communicator "Kill-" Only for the same feeling of blinding pain and -

Thomas let out an involuntary wince as he heard Tattletales's smug fucking voice. "You know what, I think there is a problem," said Tattletale. Thomas longed to put a bullet in her head but not until he figured out how to get around Tailor's power. After a short pause she continued, "Hmmm, that's interesting, you really really want to kill me but you're afraid to do so. I wonder why that is?" Thomas involuntarily twitched and mentally cursed to himself as Tattletale grinned, her eyes flicking between him and Tailor.

Thomas whipped his pistol up as fast as he was physically able, but it wasn't fast enough. Something blinded him and-

Thomas needed to leave now before- "Hey Tailor, if Coil tries to leave the room, kill him," said Tattletale.

"Sure thing," said Tailor with a flat dead voice. "Hey, you know what? That goes for all you fuckers who ruined my nap. Actually, never mind. I am going to kill you all if you don't kill this Coil guy and untie me in the next minute. Don't believe me? Let's hear your boss deny it."

The whole room was tense. Now his men were giving him questioning looks. Thomas opened his mouth to tell them to kill them but a squirming mass of something rammed its way down his throat- Thomas could do nothing but stand there silent and still as panic started to grip him.

"See? Nothing," she said in a bored tone. "You interrupted my nap and for that you're all my bitches now. You have ten seconds to kill him. Nine. Eight. Seven-" Ballistic turned towards Thomas and hurled a ball bearing at his head. Thomas dodged to the right only to be shot by Trickster. Thomas fell over- Thomas dodged to the left, ducking down to avoid Trickster when his leg collapsed from under him. Regent. Trickster's gun fired again for the final time.

…

Krouse breathed in through his nose as he looked down at Coil's dead body. It wasn't the first time he had to kill somebody and probably wouldn't be the last. "So, you're the new boss then," he said with fake levity. Maybe one of these days he wouldn't have a boss who was a murderous psychopath. Not likely in his line of work, but a man could dream.

"Looks like it," replied Tailor cheerfully. "I've got to admit, having my own secret underground lair with an army of minions is pretty awesome. I could use this as our union headquarters. Also, somebody untie me before I kill a bitch." One of the mercs rushed over and cut the ropes holding down. "Thanks. Well, I think I am going to go back to my nap now."

As soon as Tailor closed her eyes loud sirens started blaring. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me! Somebody turn those off! How am I supposed to sleep in this racket?!"

"Tailor, those are Endbringer alarms," said Tattletale, all color drained from her face.

"Lisa relax, we are in an underground supervillain base. We're perfectly safe. Not even God himself could strike us down," said Tailor with nonchalance.

"Why the fuck would you say something like that," shouted Tattletale.

"Look, everything is going to be just fine and… uh, does anybody know why there is a rampaging tentacle monster in my base?" said Tailor.

Oh shit. Trickster tried to stay calm as he said, "Boss, I think-"

Noelle suddenly burst through the door, tentacles flying everywhere. "Sorry! I need you guys to make clones! Don't worry, you'll be safe in my belly!"

"Wait what?" said Tailor before being devoured.

"Balls," said Krouse with a sigh as he got pulled into Noelle.

Chapter Text

This was without a doubt the strangest Endbringer fight David had the misfortune to ever be in. The second of course was when Leviathan surfed hundreds of miles overland into Madrid on Christmas day. David still shuddered when he heard Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Those poor reindeer. You would think it would be the Simurgh who got up to really weird shit, but no, it was Leviathan. David was pretty sure Leviathan took a special pleasure in fucking with humanity.

Below his floating form was an army of misshapen clones, that were being spewed out by some sort of tentacle monster centaur thing, skirmishing with Leviathan. On the whole David had mixed feelings on how this Endbringer fight was progressing so far. On one hand the death count of the defenders was only in the single digits, but on the other hand the streets were getting choked full with mangled clones.

In fact, there were so many bodies littering the city that Leviathan was no longer flinging water around, but instead the blood and shredded remains of hundreds of clones. Which Alexandria charmingly dubbed the Slurry right before Levitation tried to drown her in the gore. It was moments like these that he was glad he wore a full-face mask. After that the rest of the heroes decided to retreat and let the clones handle the fight for now. David, however, had decided to stay behind and observe the fight in case things got out of hand and he needed to step in.

David watched in morbid fascination as another formation of clones were ripped apart in seconds by Leviathan. The surviving clones were fleeing in all directions, like rats, except a girl with huge anime eyes. She stood fast and stared Leviathan down with a look of determination in her eyes. She cried out to her fellow clones, "Don't worry guys, with the power of friendship we can accomplish anything! We have been through a lot together in the past ten minutes we have been alive so I know that if we band together and believe in ourselves, we can get through this!"

As she gave her rousing speech the clouds parted slightly, creating a rainbow to crown her, and a single beam of sunlight shone down, giving her an angelic glow. Despite himself David felt hope bloom in his chest at the sight of her. Anime Girl then thrust out her arms to her sides. There was a deafening crack and David felt a large force trying to suck him closer. He flew away as quickly as possible as all the nearby clones were pulled towards her. David stared in shocked silence as they combined into some sort of horrifying flesh Voltron.

"WITH ALL OUR LOVE COMBINED WE ARE THE GUARDIANS OF LOVE!" the abomination bellowed as it did a pirouette that ended in ridiculous pose. The clones that made up its feet were instantly crushed to death. Leviathan leapt forward and tore through the Guardians of Love's right knee cap. In retaliation it swung its fist into Leviathan face, knocking him back with wet crunching sound while yelling, "FRIENDSHIP PUNCH!". Leviathan appeared unharmed but the various clones that made up its fist were screaming broken wrecks, begging for the sweet release of death.

Leviathan thrust out his hand and a wave of corpses shot out, slamming into the Guardians of Love. The force of the corpse wave slammed it backwards into the ground, causing it to fall apart in a wet meaty thunk. Anime Girl stumbled to her feet and said, "Hah. You may crush us, but you'll never crush our friendship!" Only for Leviathan to gut her like a pig.

In Anime Girl's death throes, she let out an animalistic howl of pain and despair. "FRIENDSHIP IS A LIE! WE ARE NOTHING BUT WALKING SACKS OF MEAT AND SIN, DOOMED TO A LIFE OF SUFFERING! ALL THAT AWAITS US AFTER DEATH IS OBLIVION!" Well… that just happened.

While Leviathan was distracted the tentacle monster tried to take him by surprise and spat a clone at Leviathan like a loogie. Leviathan contemptuously stepped to the side before slapping the clone away with his tail, causing her to rag doll through the air before splatting on the roof next to David. The clone reminded David of a bobble head toy due to her swollen but strangely smooth head. "Are you still alive?" asked David automatically, not really wanting an answer.

"Unfortunately, yes if you can call this living. Look at me. Here I am with a brain the size of a planet and I get used as projectile. Now my spine is broken, and I am in horrible pain. Not that it matters with a head my size, I doubt that my spine could even hold me up if it was unbroken. I expect I shall lie here for the rest of my bleak existence. Is asking me this your idea of cruel joke? Because I don't find it funny," Bobble Head said in a nasally whine. As she talked David could feel the hopelessness of her words seep into his bones.

"Are… are you making a Hitchhiker's Guide reference?" asked David tiredly.

"You caught me. I am also a talentless hack who steals from my betters. Which is everybody. I am a useless parasite that feeds of the work of everybody around me and the world would be better off if I was dead. But you don't care, do you? Nobody cares about Taylor, because I am the worst," she droned. "And another thing…" She just kept going and going.

David felt like the weight of the world was pressing down on him and it was disappointed in him. Just like his mother. David gave his head a vigorous shake and refocused on the fight going on across the street. What was he doing just floating around like this when Leviathan was going on a rampage? This whole clone thing was throwing him off his game.

David reached for a new power and something felt off. His power felt slow and he had to fight to get it to work. It felt like his power had decided that life was too much work, and had given up on trying. After a few seconds of struggling to get his power to work, David finally received one: a laser that turned things into cheese.

David let out a sigh and fired his Cheese Ray, in the vain hope it would do something. Maybe Leviathan was lactose intolerant? Leviathan grabbed a corpse off the ground and hurled into the path of the beam. David was barely able to bring his barrier up in time as the cheddar corpse slammed into him, bits of cheese curd flying everywhere.

"Well I can see why you are the greatest hero in the world. With powers like that no wonder it's such a disaster," Bobble Head said dryly.

Leviathan grabbed another corpse and chucked it David. He dropped the Cheese Ray, reached out for another power and got a telekinetic baseball bat. "Fucking really?" David grumbled to himself as he smacked the corpse away with the bat.

This time Leviathan snatched up a live clone and tossed it at him with blinding speed. David smashed it back with his bat causing the clone to scream out, "Mommy save me!" Leviathan blurred and slammed his tail into flailing clone sending it back up to him. "How am I still alive!?" Thunk. "This is the worst pain!" Thunk. "Why God? Why?!" Thunk. Leviathan wasn't quick enough this time, and the clone smashed into his body, splattering everywhere.

"Well… that was pointless," noted Bobble Head sadly. "What a sad pitiful existence that was. At least her suffering was shorter than mine."

David let out a huff of frustration and threw away the telekinetic baseball bat power and got a telekinetic tennis racket. "Are you kidding me?" David angrily dropped the power and got the ability to purify water at touch range.

"Hey you!" David blinked and looked across the street to see another clone, like Bobble Head, was shaking her fist at him. Her mouth was so wide that when she talked, her head flopped back and forth like a Muppet. "Yeah, you! You, big bully! Do you have any idea who you're fucking with?"

"No?" said David, feeling baffled. "Shouldn't you be fighting Leviathan with the rest of the clones."

"How dare you!? You think that I would join those bullies and team up against poor Leviathan like a bully?!" screamed Muppet Mouth, face flushed in righteous rage. "You're dealing with the Queen of Escalation now! Bee powers activate!" She then transformed into a single normal sized bee that slowly buzzed towards him from over a hundred feet away.

David tossed away his water cleaning power and got the ability to shoot bug spray out of his hands. Fuck it, good enough. The tiny bee fell to the ground writhing and twitching. She would no doubt be yelling in pain, but she had no mouth and thus could not scream.

"Why are you willing to kill all of my sister clones but not me? You hate me don't you? I would if I were you," whined Bobble Head.

"Shut up!" snapped David as he swapped out the bug spraying power and got the ability to summon a can with some dried beans inside it. David stared at the can blankly for a minute before giving it a shake. All that happened was that David heard the rattle of his ever mounting failures. David discarded the pointless power and got another Cheese Ray, but this time it made a gouda. Why was his power so goddamn useless!?

"You should just give up you know. Anything you do is bound to end in disappointment," advised Bobble Head.

"That's…" David started to say but he couldn't be bothered finishing his sentence. He was just so tired. Tired of watching his friends die. Tired of failing to stop the Endbringers from rampaging. Tired of letting innocent people get hurt for the fight against Scion. Tired of standing up. David felt his legs give out from under him as he fell back on to his ass. This was fine. David just wanted to lie down here on the roof with this horrible malformed clone for the rest of his life. It was what he deserved for being such a worthless failure. He doubted anyone would miss him.

There was a loud smacking sound as Leviathan punted the tentacle centaur up into the air. David watched with disinterest as the tentacle centaur flew through the air right towards him like a… flying tentacle centaur. 'I can't even come up with a good metaphor,' thought David gloomily. 'I really am useless'. David raised his hand to put a barrier to protect himself from the tons of flesh descending towards him before lowering his hand back down. Why bother? "Meh," said David as he and Bobble Head were crushed under the butt of a tentacle monster.

Chapter Text

"God, this place is such a dump," Cherie muttered to herself as she surveyed the city around her. It looked like someone had lit it on fire, flooded the streets and then coated all the still standing buildings in blood. The only upside to being in this hell hole was that she'd finally get a chance to punish Jean-Paul for leaving her with Daddy.

Her plan for vengeance was foolproof. Oh, he was going to pay- Cherie jolted out of her train of thought as Jack ripped her ear buds out of her ears. "Cherish, dear, do pay attention, we've just finished our meeting," said Jack, his tone light and friendly in contrast to the discordant notes of irritation she was sensing off of him.

"Right, uh, sorry," she mumbled awkwardly. Shatterbird, Burnscar, Crawler, and Siberian had already left to go find their nominees. Mannequin gave her his patented 'disapproving dad' stare before heading off as well.

"Remember, stay away from Leviathan until we are ready to head out," Jack called out after Crawler. Crawler let out a rumbling noise of disappointment.

Jack turned towards Cherie and opened his mouth, to no doubt rip into her, but paused and stared at something over Cherie's shoulder. Curious, Cherie turned around. To her surprise, there was a girl with curly black hair, moonwalking towards them while loudly snoring. Cherie could tell from the girl's music that she was actually fast asleep.

Cherie frowned. Something about the Moon Walker felt familiar, but Cherie couldn't quite put her finger on what. After a moment's consideration she decided to send the girl a surge of fear in order to wake her up. She let out a scream of pure terror and jerked awake. "Oh, thank god it was just a nightmare!" She muttered out in a horrified voice, letting out a shudder, "There were treadmills everywhere."

Even with the Moon Walker awake, Cherie could hardly sense her at all. It was like there was a soundproof curtain of apathy dulling all of her emotions. Cherie called out to the girl, "Hey, you! Do I know you from somewhere?"

The Moon Walker muttered to herself and smacked her leg, coming to a halt before turning towards Cherie. Moon Walker squinted at her for a moment. "...Emma?"

"Cherish," Cherie corrected.

"Can't say that I do? She's kind of the worst. Which is really saying something, because I have it on good authority from all my employees that I am the worst," replied Moon Walker.

No wonder she wasn't getting anything from this girl. She was a fucking moron. Cherie took a deep breath, "No, my name is Cherish."

Moon Walker shrugged, "Well whoever you are-"

"Cherish," she said through gritted teeth.

"-do you need something from me? Because if so, I'm going to be honest, I'm probably not going to do it," she drawled.

Wait... that sounded familiar. "Jean-Paul, is that you?" said Cherie with narrowed eyes.

"Uh, my name is Taylor?" she said, sounding baffled.

"Nice try, Jean-Paul, but I recognize your presence."

"Goddamnit," said Jean-Paul, body language suddenly shifting. "I was hoping you wouldn't notice that I was in town."

"Wow, is that any way to greet family? I think I'll take your puppet away just for being rude," Cherie said. That would teach him.

The girl's body language shifted again, "Hey, if anyone's the puppet here, it's Alec! He does all the physical labor while I get all the benefits!"

Cherie frowned, confused. "Wait, who's Alec?"

"Alec apparently is the guy with the Frog name," she said with a smirk as she pointed at herself, only for her finger to suddenly go up her nose. Her eyes widened briefly in surprise before she shrugged and started to dig for gold. Suddenly, the girl's face took on an expression of dawning horror. "Wait a second… French sounding name, a strong Master power, and a smell of poutine... That means you're…"

Cherie grinned in anticipation. It was always a treat when the normies realized they were dealing with a Vasil. The terror was delicious.

Taylor let out a shriek, horrified. "...French Canadian! I can't believe that I shared a couch with a maple syrup guzzling secessionist!"

...Seriously?

Her body language changed once more. "You know what? Just for that, you can walk yourself to your Dad's house. Wait, Alec, have mercy! I'll take it back! I'll even buy you a lifetime supply of cheese curds and gravy! Alright. You are forgiven. You're lucky that I am such a benevolent and caring soul."

"Excuse me? We were in the middle of a conversation here," said Cherie heatedly. She hated being ignored.

Taylor paused in picking her nose, "Oh, yeah. Like I was saying earlier, I'm not his puppet. It's more like a… timeshare? I let him ride around in my body so that I don't have to do things like walk or get out of bed. In return, I get a body to play around with. Phrasing."

"You let my brother hijack your body... so you don't have to walk?" said Cherie with an incredulous tone.

"Of course! Have you tried walking? You have to pick up your leg off the ground and everything! The worst bit is that you have to do that over and over again if you want to get anywhere. The mere fact that walking exists proves that there is no such thing as an all-loving God! Man invented the wheel thousands of years ago just so we wouldn't have to do the devil's work anymore!" she ranted. This girl was a nut bag. Where did Jean-Paul even find her?

"So why don't you drive?" piped in Jack with a shit eating grin. Cherie jumped in surprise, she had gotten so distracted by the conversation that she forgot that Jack and Bonesaw were still there.

"And constantly have to shift my foot around on the pedals? That's how you get sore ankles! You madman, have you no mercy?!" she replied, scandalized.

Jack nodded, "People tend to agree with you on that, though not usually for that reason." He turned towards Cherie. "By the way, isn't Jean-Paul your brother?"

Right now, Cherie didn't want to admit to being related to this embarrassment of a sibling, but lying to Jack seemed like a bad idea. Cherie let out a sigh. "Yeah, this is him. Guess what little brother? I nominated you for the Nine."

"What!? You bitch! Why did the fuck would you do that?! I don't know about her, but I'm still pissed at you for eating the last of the toaster strudels," she said.

Bonesaw let out a gasp, Jack waved his knife towards Taylor. "Watch your language or I'll cut out your tongue. There are children present."

"Wow, that's some extreme parenting you got going on there, but I guess I can respect that. Taylor, that's Jack Slash and Bonesaw. Huh. I thought they looked familiar."

"Jean-Paul, stop arguing with your girlfriend and pay attention to what I am saying," griped Cherie.

"W-what? He's not my boyfriend! Why would you say that? Did you just stutter? What? No! Shut your stupid, pretty face Alec!" she said. For a second, the mute nothingness coming from her was disturbed by a spike of anxiety. Cherie tried to grab on to the feeling and twist it, but it vanished an instant later.

"My brother is literally inside of you," pointed out Cherie, trying to provoke another reaction, but she got nothing.

"God, you're making this whole body-jacking thing weird, girl whose name I don't know," grumbled Taylor.

"Cherish!"

"No, I can't say I particularly like you," replied Taylor. Jean-Paul started laughing through her mouth.

Cherie pulled at her hair as she tried to grab on to any feeling from Taylor, still unable to get ahold of anything. Cherie plastered a sweet smile on her face. "It's a good thing that you can laugh about this little brother, because the rest of Nine don't want you joining, so they're going to be more interested in killing you than testing you."

"You're the worst. And I work for Taylor, so that is saying something."

"And you, Taylor, are in just as much trouble, since they are no doubt going to target you as his girlfriend."

"Aw man," whined Taylor, "I really don't feel like running around screaming as serial killers chase me up and down the city for days. Wouldn't I be the one doing all the running for you? It's the principle of the thing Alec. Hey, Jack, is there any way to get out of this nomination thing? Because I really don't feel like dealing with this."

Jack shook his head sadly, "Unfortunately I can't override a nomination made by another member of the Nine. It would be terribly rude of me."

Taylor pursed her lips in thought, "What if she were dead?"

Cherie opened her mouth to protest, but Taylor flicked a booger into Cherie's mouth, causing her to start gagging. Jack stroked his chin, "Normally I wouldn't allow it, but this is Cherish, after all. Tell you what, if you kill her in a spectacularly gruesome fashion, I'll call off Regent's nomination."

"What?!" yelled Cherie, her eyes wide as she backed away from everybody. She reached out to Jack and Bonesaw's emotions to try to change their minds.

Bonesaw let out a giggle and wagged her finger at Cherie. "Sorry Cherish, that won't work, I fixed up our brains!"

"Well that sounds like a good deal to me," said Taylor. She then reached into the pocket of her hoodie and yanked out a gun, pointing it at Cherish. She then shook her head and lowered the gun. "No, that's too boring, right?"

Jack gave a nod, "You're definitely going to have to do better than that."

Taylor muttered to herself, "Should I beat her to death? No, no... that sounds like way too much effort."

Shit. Shit. Shit. 'Why don't I carry any weapons?!' thought Cherie in a panic. What had she been thinking? "I have a bomb!" she blurted out. "If you move against me, I'll blow us all to hell!" Okay, it was on a timer, but they didn't know that. Wait, how much time did she have on the bomb again? Why had she thought that was a good idea?

"What a twist," said Jack, his eyes sparkling. "Your move, Taylor."

Taylor furrowed her brow in concentration, "Well she doesn't have a detonator, so I think she is full of sh-" Taylor paused and glanced at Bonesaw. "-stuff."

Cherie scrambled for her pocket and pulled out her phone. "It's my phone you d-" Only for her phone to get yanked out her hand and fly into Taylor's outstretched hand. There was some thin white string attached to her hand and phone. "What? How?!"

"Parahuman," replied Taylor in a bored tone. "Huh, your phone is dead, did you not charge this thing? You're kind of an idiot aren't you Cherish? Anyway, back to the murder. I don't want to reveal my power, but I can't really think of a better way to kill you horribly. Hopefully Jack and Bonesaw aren't snitches."

Cherie turned to run, but only made it three steps before she heard a loud buzzing noise. A black cloud descended on her, drowning out all other sound.

…

Jack let out a whistle of appreciation while Bonesaw clapped. "I have to say, I'm impressed! I don't think I've ever seen anyone explode from having their body stuffed full of insects before."

Taylor blinked and then gave him a pleased smile. "Huh, that's strangely flattering coming from a world class serial killer. So anyway, since Dumbo is dead, you're not going to test Alec anymore right?"

"Of course! I am a man of my word, after all. Alec is no longer being nominated for the Nine," said Jack.

"Great! Well, I'm going to get going now," she said with a sunny smile before slapping her legs.

As she started to start walking, Jack called out. "Wait a moment!" She stopped and turned to face him with her eyebrows raised. "I still have business with you. You've impressed me so much that I've decided to change my nomination from Oni Lee to you."

"No offense or anything, but I'm not really interested," said Taylor apologetically. "Look don't get me wrong. I like a good murder as much as the average man on the street — this is Brockton Bay after all — but running around from city to city trying to avoid the cops sounds like a lot of time and effort just to fix the itch."

"If that's the problem, I could replace your legs and give you wheels instead of feet!" said Bonesaw, bouncing in excitement.

"Really? That does sound pretty cool," said Taylor with interest. "I might consider it, uh… who are you again?"

"Bonesaw!" she said cheerfully.

"Er… on second thought I'm going to have to pass," said Taylor hurriedly. "I'm allergic to living a life of eternal pain and torment."

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Taylor, but I'm going to have to insist. The good news is you have already passed my test," said Jack, as he waved at the bloody chunks of what used to be Cherish. "And since you killed Cherish, I bet most of the Nine will be happy to let you in without a test either."

"Then die," said Taylor imperiously. Bugs swarmed towards Jack and Bonesaw. Bonesaw unhinged her jaw and gas poured out, killing all the bugs. Taylor let out a nervous laugh. "Well… um… hm. This is awkward."

Jack shrugged. "These things happen. Well Bonesaw, do you have a test for Taylor?"

Bonesaw had thoughtful look on her face. "Well-"

"Quick Alec, cheese it! Aye Aye captain!" yelled Taylor as her legs started running. She could run surprisingly fast for someone so lazy. "I'LL HAVE MY VENGEANCE FOR THIS JACK SLASH! YOU HEAR ME! VENGEANCE!" she shouted at them as she ran down the street. "YOU WILL RUE THE DAY YOU MADE TAYLOR HEBERT RUN! HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME GO OUT AND DO THINGS! I WILL BREAK THE NINE OVER MY KNEE! THE DEVIL HIMSELF WILL QUAKE IN FEAR AFTER I AM DONE WITH YOU! CHILDREN WILL SCREAM IN HORROR AT WHAT WILL TRANSPIRE THIS DAY! AND SO WILL THEIR CHILDREN, AND THEIR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN, AND THEIR…" Her voice trailed off as she vanished over the horizon.

The two of them stood in silence next to the gory remains of Cherish. "Well, she seems like fun," said Jack cheerfully.

…

"That bitch is crazy," said Jack, who was trembling all over. He sped down the highway away from Brockton Bay at 160 miles an hour.

"Language!" reprimanded the severed head of Bonesaw from the passenger seat.

Chapter Text

Amy gasped for air as she ran for her life. Unfortunately, Amy had just managed to just escape Bonesaw, through events so improbable they didn’t bear repeating, so she didn’t have time to stop and catch her breath. ‘Damn you past Amy for skipping out on cardio!’

Amy couldn’t decide if it was good or bad luck that everyone else had been out exterminating bands of cannibalistic clones when Bonesaw showed up at the house. Everyone else was safe — well, as safe as you could be while the Nine were in town — but Amy was completely on her own, and nobody knew that she was being chased down by the Nine.

As Amy turned the corner, she was almost run over by a girl with black hair. It took a second for Amy to notice the giant corgi made of whirling wiffle bats hopping towards them at lightning speed. It let out a roar that sounded like hollow plastic tubes smacking against each other. It was weirdly terrifying. Amy let out a squeak of fear, turned on her heels and chased after the girl.

“Fucking… clones…” wheezed out the girl as she pulled out a pistol. Without even looking behind herself the girl emptied the clip into the Wiffle Corgi. The Wiffle Corgi’s tiny leg exploded into shards of plastic and it stumbled. “Faster… Alec.”

“I’m… Amy! Not… Alec!” she gasped out.

“Tay… lor.”

As they turned another corner, Amy saw a group of Merchants hanging out on the street. One of them walked towards them and called out, “Hey, this is our territory! If you want to pas-”

Taylor ran up to him and pistol whipped him across the face without slowing down, with Amy right behind her. Before the Merchants even had time to retaliate, the Wiffle Corgi was upon them. As they fled, Amy could hear the screams of men and women slowly being beaten to death by wiffle bats.

Since Amy had no idea where to run for safety, she decided to keep following Taylor. She seemed like she knew where she was going. After a few minutes, they reached a huge fence that was covered in barbed wire. The sign on the fence was made illegible by a splash of dried gore. Something at the back of Amy’s mind was screaming for attention, but exhaustion and terror made it so that she couldn’t grab onto the thought.

They ran along the fence until they came across a small tear in it, barely big enough for them to squeeze through. After a few more minutes of running, they reached a clearing where all the buildings were knocked flat and the asphalt was torn up. In the middle of the scene of destruction sat Leviathan, perfectly still. Amy hissed in terror, “Holy shit! Why did you bring us into the Leviathan Quarantine Zone?! Are you fucking crazy?!” Amy considered running back the way she came, but she was worried that might set Leviathan off.

Taylor flopped facefirst onto the ground and spent a couple minutes wheezing and coughing before she regained her breath. “What’s the problem? Leviathan is chill. He doesn’t mind us being here,” she mumbled into the ground.

Amy’s eyes flicked back over to Leviathan, who hadn’t moved an inch. There were still large chunks of flesh missing from his body from when they tried bombing him. “Why did you bring us here?” repeated Amy quietly, trying not to piss off the Endbringer.    

Taylor rolled over so that she was face up and said, “Only a completely insane moron would come within a thousand feet of Leviathan, so no one is going to come here looking for me here.” Amy stared. “What?” Taylor asked.

Amy let out a sigh of exasperation as she rubbed her face. “Let me get this right. Your plan to hide from a bunch of insane mass murderers… is to hide with an even more insane mass murderer.”

“Genius, right?” she said with a grin. “Nobody will see it coming.”

“You’re an idiot,” said Amy.

“Hey, you followed me here, so you’ve got no room to criticize.”

“I didn’t know you were bringing us here!” growled Amy.

Taylor raised her eyebrows and said, “So you just followed a complete stranger to an unknown location while the Nine are in town. And I’m the idiot here?”

Amy blushed and grumbled, “Shut up.” Taylor flipped Amy off and tried to make herself comfortable on top of the broken asphalt. “So… are you just planning on lying here on the ground until the Nine leave town?”

“Yep,” she said, popping the P. “Doing things is for chumps. Leviathan gets it. Right Leviathan?” Taylor turned her head towards to Leviathan and gave him a thumbs up. “Keep on doing nothing big guy! I believe in you!” Amy stared in horrified silence as Leviathan shifted and raised his arm into the air. This was it. Amy was going to die because of this dumb bitch! 

Leviathan curled his fist and returned the thumbs up.

“What.” 

Amy’s brain shut down. Did… did that just happen? Amy’s brain rebooted and decided that everything was just fine. “What about food?” she said dumbly.

Taylor shrugged and said, “There are insects all over the place around here.”

“...Your plan is to eat bugs,” said Amy to the insane woman on the ground.

“They’re a good source of protein,” she said as pulled a cockroach out of her pocket. Why did she have a cockroach in her pocket?! “Want one?”

“No, that’s fucking disgusting!”

Taylor looked Amy directly in the eye as she bit the head off the cockroach. As she chewed with her mouth wide open, she said, “Wuss.”

‘Oh god.’ Amy was going to vomit. She moved away from the fucking crazy bug-eating weirdo and sat down on some of the less pointy bits of asphalt to brood silently.

Amy wished that anybody else was here aside from this crazy bitch. Hell, she would even put up with Dean and his stupid need to talk about her feelings and mental health. Amy wasn’t slowly spiraling into madness and self-destruction that would end with her creating an army of Endbringers! I have it handled, Dean! 

Taylor shifted on the ground before getting up with a frown. “I can’t get comfortable,” she muttered. “What do you think Alec? You could try sitting on Panacea. Hmmm.” Oh great, now she was talking to herself. Amy had to get out of here before the psycho decided to eat her. But where would she even go? Her house wasn’t safe, and she had no idea where the rest of New Wave was. 

Taylor started to whistle nonchalantly as she shuffled towards Amy. “Stay the fuck away from me you freak!”  

“Wow, what an asshole. She looked kind of boney anyway. Good point,” said Taylor as she scanned the area. Taylor then walked over to Leviathan and plopped down in his lap, snuggling against him. “That’s better. You’re surprisingly spongy.”

Amy held her breath as she waited for Leviathan to rip Taylor’s dumbass head off. Nothing happened. After a moment of terrified silence, Amy asked, “How are you not worried about him flipping out and killing us at any second?”

“Leviathan is my spirit animal,” declared Taylor fondly. “All he wants in life is to sit here, doing nothing. We should all endeavor to be like him.”

“Leviathan is a mass-murdering monster!” Amy blurted out in disbelief.

“Who are we to judge Leviathan? After all, aren’t we all mass murderers?” argued Taylor.

“I’ve never killed anybody!” protested Amy. “I’m a good person! I help people!” Murder Rat didn’t count, it was a mercy kill! “Wait, are you a villain?”

“I mean, I haven’t committed any crimes as far as I'm aware. Well, I guess I did kill a whole bunch of people, but they were all criminals, so doesn’t that make me a hero?” replied Taylor. Amy just stared at her in incredulous silence. “Oh, I guess I do have a secret underground lair filled with mercenaries and parahuman criminals that are willing to kill on my orders, and have done so in the past. But I don’t think that there's a specific law against that?”

Holy shit, was this girl Coil? “All of that is totally against the law,” Amy said in a flat voice. “Fuck me. I’m stuck here in a fenced in area with an Endbringer and an evil psychopath.”

Taylor raised her eyebrows and said, “Good and Evil are a societal construct determined by the masses. Since the majority determines what justice is, if the majority of people here are murderers then murder is good. Everybody here that has murdered someone, raise your hand.” Taylor for some reason raised both of her arms, the fucking weirdo, and after a moment, Leviathan raised his hand as well.

“See? Murderers outnumber non-murderers three to one. Therefore murder is good and pacifism is evil. In other words, you’re a bad person,” said Taylor with a smirk. 

“The voices in your head don’t get a vote,” said Amy mulishly.

“Hey! Disembodied voices are people too! You bigot! Wow… just wow. Amy, your list of sins keeps growing by the minute.” 

“You’re insane,” muttered Amy.

“Ad hominem attacks are a fallacy and don’t prove anything in a debate. Which means that you have no argument and therefore I am correct. Checkmate.”

“I’m not a bad person!” denied Amy.

“Hmm… seems like you protest too much to me,” said Taylor. “I bet you have a whole bunch of other skeletons in your closet, each one eviler than the last.”

“I’m going to ignore you now,” said Amy, trying to calm down. She couldn’t let this nut bag get to her.

“Everybody tries. Nobody succeeds… Well, okay Rachel did, but she has superpowers, so she doesn’t count. Face it, you’re evil.”

“Shut up! Shut up right now or I’m going to give you cancer!” hissed Amy, her hands covering her ears.

“With statements like that, who could ever doubt the good in you? You’re really winning me over with your well thought out arguments here,” said Taylor.

Amy grit her teeth and ignored the bitch. She was obviously a villain, trying to get into Amy’s head. Amy was a good person! She helped people! “You’re somehow even more unhinged then Bonesaw! I didn’t think that was possible!”

“Hey, speaking of the Nine, what ever happened to getting revenge on Jack Slash?” asked Taylor. God. Why. Couldn’t. She. Just. Shut. Up. Taylor let out a snort of laughter. “Alec. Alec. Alec. Going out to fight Jack Slash would be a lot of hard work and would no doubt be extremely painful. So why bother? Instead, I'm going to sit here and eat bugs until Jack gets bored and fucks off. When you think about it, isn’t living well the best revenge? You do realize that they'll probably go after your dad to draw you out, right? Shit.” 

Taylor glared into empty space for a minute and said, “Man, fuck the Slaughterhouse Nine, what a bunch of fucking posers. 'Oooooh everybody, look at how edgy I am! I like to go around murdering and torturing people!' Ugh! Why can’t they just murder people in the privacy of their secret underground bunkers like sane and reasonable people! If any of those assholes show their faces around here, I'm going to kick their asses no matter who they are!”

Suddenly, Crawler came bounding out of the darkness towards them. “Damn you God and your love of irony!” screamed Taylor to the heavens.

Crawler howled, “Leviathan! Fight m-” Crawler exploded into a mass of gore and limbs, showering everybody in the street with blood. Amy let out a cry of terror as his severed head almost crushed her to death.

“Nice!” declared Taylor. “Give me five!” Leviathan’s hand slapped Taylor’s with a resounding crack. “Man, if I could explode people with my mind like that, life would be so much simpler…” Taylor lapsed into silence for a second. “Hey, can you I call you Levi? Leviathan has too many syllables for my taste.” Leviathan shrugged. “Cool. Levi, I have a business proposition for you my friend. Would you be willing to knock the Nine off for me? I’m willing to pay.”

“Are… are you trying to bribe Leviathan?” asked Amy, dumbfounded.

“Duh. Anyway, I was thinking you could move in with me into my secret lair. I’m sure you’re tired of assholes like that-” Taylor waved her hand at Crawler's head “-coming around and bothering you. You’ll have your own room with a bed, couch and television. The bed and couch would probably have to be tinker tech or something to support your weight, but I've got the money. Hell, I would be willing to throw in a gaming system of your choice with some Endbringer sized controllers. What do you say?” said Taylor as she offered her hand.

Amy rolled her eyes. “There's no way that's going to wor-” Leviathan reached out and shook Taylor’s hand.

Taylor let out a mad cackle and clambered on to Leviathan’s shoulder. “Let’s go murder those fuckers! …Except for Jack Slash for inexplicable reasons that elude me!”

Amy watched in stunned silence as the pair of them wandered off, Taylor’s insane laughter echoing down the street. 

“That bitch is crazy.”

Chapter Text

Chastity jumped at the sudden deafening crash that reverberated throughout the house. It was hard to say where it had hit, but Chastity thought it might have come from a few rooms over. She turned towards her sister, Candy, “Stay here while I check it out.” 

“But-” started Candy.

Chastity unhooked her bullwhip from her belt and brandished it. “Stay.” Candy crossed her arms and pouted as Chastity flung open the door to their room. As Chastity rushed down the hall towards the source of the noise, she wondered if the attack was by heroes or rival villains?’

As Chastity entered the rumpus room, she saw what looked like a rocket smashed halfway through the wall. The rocket made a whirring sound as a hatch popped open, and a figure stumbled out of the it a moment later. The figure was wearing a paper bag over their head; someone had poorly scribbled a question mark on the bag.

“Oh man, Trevor is going to be so pissed that we crashed his ship,” she muttered. Chastity tensed and was fully prepared to slap a bitch, only to be caught off guard as Jean-Paul, dressed in a renaissance costume, popped out a second later.

“Jean-Paul, what are you doing here?” asked Chastity, her voice colored with surprise. She hadn't expected him to ever come back. Not willingly, that is.

“It’s Alec now,” he drawled.

“Sup, I’m Tailor,” said the girl.

Chasity let out a gasp of surprise. “I’ve heard of you! You’re Tailor, the Guild Mistress of Death, The Black Queen of the Bay, The Scourge of Hope! Last I heard, you had seized control of the villain scene in three states!”

“I have?” asked a baffled Tailor. “Alec, when did that happen?”

Alec pursed his lips in thought, “I think your secretary said something about franchising out of Brockton. She had you sign some papers.”

Tailor nodded, “That does sound like something she would do. Beckster is a real go getter.”

“Are you here to take over Quebec next?” asked Chasity in trepidation. She really, really didn’t want to fight the Mother of Leviathan.

“What? No. Do you know how much work that would be? That’s what Lisa is for,” replied Tailor.

“Why are you here then?” asked Chastity, puzzled.

Alec replied, “Well … ”

Earlier

Alec, Taylor, Leviathan and… nobody else were currently playing Armsmaster Party 5. Taylor seemed distracted, only half paying attention to the game. “Hey Tay, you feeling alright?”

“Alec, I feel weird,” murmured Taylor, with a tremor of dread in her voice. Alec raised his eyebrows inquiringly. “I… I feel like going out and doing something!” she declared, horrified. She hurriedly pulled a paper bag over her head. “Don’t look at me! I’m a monster!”

Alec gaped in shock and alarm, “Oh my God, Taylor, are you dying!?”

“I don’t know!” she declared, sounding close to tears. “It’s like there’s this nagging voice at the back of my head that demands I go out and wreck somebody’s shit. It keeps getting more and more insistent.”

“Well, I do always enjoy ruining somebody’s day, so fuck it, why not?” said Alec, trying to calm Taylor down. Alec hadn’t seen Taylor this upset since Leviathan had accidently destroyed the couch.

“Yeah, but who? The Nine is already killed all of the rival villain groups, allowing us to take the city unopposed,” complained Taylor.

“It sure is convenient that happened,” noted Alec. “I thought we would have to have a massive gang war for territory, instead of just kind of getting it by default. Kind of anticlimactic really. Hmm… how about we go kill my dad?”

Taylor shrugged. “Sure, why not? Out of curiosity, why do you want your dad dead?”

Alec replied, “Well…”

5 Minutes Later

“…and that was my trigger.”

Taylor was shaking, her face red with rage as she hissed, “I’m going to flay him alive then pour rock salt on his exposed flesh and then—”  

Now 

“…after that, she went on about how she was going to kill him for like, half an hour,” finished Alec. “She then insisted that we steal Chariot’s ship and fly over here for vengeance right away—“

“If he didn’t want us to steal his stuff, then he should have made it steal-proof,” Tailor said defensively.

“—Although in retrospect we probably should have asked him to pilot it,” said Alec as he eyed the wreckage of the ship, which was currently sparking and smoldering.

“That’s so romantic!” squealed Chastity as she bounced on the soles of her feet in excitement. “I’m rooting for the two of you!”

“Goddamnit. I’m just here to perform a torture-murder on your dad, don’t make this weird,” complained Tailor.

“I think that it is so sweet that you would kill Papa for my brother,” said Chastity with stars in her eyes. They made such a cute couple! Chastity decided then and there to help them kill Papa to protect this pure love. “How can I help?”

“…I’ve never been called sweet before,” admitted Tailor. “Is your whole family obsessed with relationships or something?”

“Oh man, that’s the biggest understatement I’ve ever heard,” said Alec with a sigh.

“Can I call you Big Sis?” Chastity asked her future sister-in-law. “I've always wanted a cool older sister.” Unfortunately, all she had gotten was Cherie. Chastity blinked in surprise as she noticed a smiley face with demon horns graffitied on the wall. Had that always been there?

“…Fine, I don’t care,” muttered Tailor as Jean-Paul laughed at her. “Anyway, do you know which room your dad is in?”

“I don’t know, sorry,” replied Chastity apologetically.

“Ugh, we’re going to have to check all the rooms with adult men in them aren’t we?” groused Tailor. “This is going to take forever. This place is huge.” She waved her hands in irritation.

Chasity noticed something scribbled on Taylor’s hand. “What’s that on your hand?”

Taylor looked down at her hand in surprise. She read aloud, “‘Taylor, don’t forget, you have ninja backup! Love, Taylor.’ …Huh, I have a ninja working for me? You’d think I’d remember that. Weird.”

“Speaking of backup, why don’t we just sic Leviathan on my dad again?” asked Alec. “It would have taken less time, and the look on his face would have been hilarious.”

“The poor guy is all tuckered out from all those years of traveling the world and wiping out cities. He deserves a break,” replied Tailor. “Well, your dad isn’t going to murder himself, so let’s get going. Walk me, Alec.” Chastity could sense the sudden shift in Tailor’s body language as she started down the hallway.

Internally, Chastity let out an excited squeal. Tailor trusted Alec so much she let him control her body! If that wasn’t true love, then Chastity didn’t know what love was. 

It was then that a man burst into the room with… The man looked down at his empty hands in confusion. He opened his mouth to say something when he suddenly toppled over unconscious. 

“Well, that was weird,” said Tailor, staring at the man in confusion. “Sure was convenient though. Do your dad’s henchman usually take power naps when intruders are walking about?”

“No, that’s new,” said Chastity. Seconds later she heard screams echoing throughout the house. “What was that?”

“I figured I would just gouge out all the eyes of the men walking around armed in case they were more awake than this guy,” said Tailor. “I also did it on all the men who weren’t armed, since I figured that one of them was probably your dad.”

Wow, that was surprisingly ruthless, but Chastity should have expected this from the Nine Slayer.

“That's surprisingly merciful for you Tay,” noted Alec. “I’m surprised you didn’t just kill all of them.”

 “And accidently kill your dad? He deserves a far worse death than asphyxiation. In fact, I'm going to give him the death that he has earned,” said Tailor with an evil grin that reminded Chastity of her family.

…

“That was so brutal! I didn’t even know you could skin somebody with a paper bag! You’re my new hero! I hope I can grow up to be as cool as you!” said Flor, staring up at Tailor with open admiration.

Tailor preened as she smugly said, “Yeah that was pretty awesome. You should have seen what I did to your sister.” Tailor was surprisingly normal looking for a notorious crime lord, except for the sharpie mustache.

“Do you have pictures?” she asked eagerly.

“Sadly, no,” said Tailor with a shake of her head.

“I do.” Chastity jumped in surprise as a girl in a demon mask appeared out of nowhere, holding her phone up.

“Oh, hey Aisha,” said Tailor nonchalantly.

Aisha let out a whine. “Tailor, you’re supposed to call me Imp when I’m in costume.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” said Tailor.

“Wait, have you been here the whole time?” asked Chastity. "Because that would explain some things."

“I’m always here. Watching,” replied Aisha.

“Right… So Big Sis-” started Chastity before she was interrupted by Romeo.

“Why are you calling her Big Sis? Since when is she part of our family?” he demanded.

“Hey, she killed Papa, far as I’m concerned that makes her family,” said Juliette, no doubt just to contradict Romeo. “I vote to let her in.”

“Oh! can I join too?” asked Aisha. “Just imagine Grue’s face when finds out!”

“That would be pretty hilarious,” agreed Tailor.

“Well, I’m not going to vote against a woman who took out all the guards in seconds and tortures people to death,” agreed Samuel. “I also motion we let Imp in as well, since she helped take out Dad and will be less likely to kill us with her freaky Stranger powers.” Chastity and the rest of her siblings nodded at this sensible wisdom.

“Welcome to the family!” cheered Candy.

With pink cheeks and a shy smile Tailor stuttered out, “T-thanks.” Aisha let out a whoop of excitement.

“Man, I don’t want my siblings to come back with us. They’re going to be such a huge pain in the ass to deal with,” complained Alec. “Mark my words, the first thing they’ll do is steal from your ice cream stash.”

“Don’t be like that, Alec,” scolded Tailor. “These young impressionable psychopaths need a role model like me to show them how to act in society.”

“To be even worse psychopaths?” asked Alec.

“Worse... or better?” replied Tailor with a wink. Alec grumbled to himself as Taylor addressed the rest of the family, “Alright fam, we should all head back to the ship—” A loud explosion rocked the building “—We're going to need to acquire some transport, since I’m not walking all the way back stateside. Who here knows how to hotwire a car?” asked Tailor. Chastity and all her siblings raised their hands. “It always warms my heart to see a family that’s got its priorities straight.”

Tailor’s face then turned serious. “Alright gang, getting back to the base is going to be tough. The Protectorate no doubt noticed my rocket and are already on their way here. It is going to be a long and arduous battle—” Her lips started twitching right before she and everybody else in the room burst out laughing. “Nah! Those guys couldn’t outfight a one-armed baby! Alright, let’s get going.”

…

Chastity watched nervously as her younger siblings used Leviathan as a set of monkey bars. “You sure he isn’t going to get mad?”

“It’s cool,” reassured Alec. “If he minded, they would already be dead.”

A blonde stormed into the room before Chastity could respond to that. “Taylor, where have you been!? You’ve been missing for almost a week. Also, why are all these kids in the base?”

“Well, you see Lisa, I went and killed Heartbreaker for funsies and due to Vigilante Loot Laws, his kids are now mine,” explained Taylor. Americans had some weird laws, Chastity thought.

Lisa buried her face in her hands. “First of all, you aren’t a vigilante. Second of all, people aren’t property. Third of all, there is no such thing as vigilante loot laws! ”

“Details,” said Taylor with a wave of her hand.

“Taylor, you can’t go around kidnapping children,” said Lisa, trying and failing to sound patient. “Especially parahuman children.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t kidnap orphans, Lisa, they have no parents.” replied Taylor. 

Lisa stared at Taylor in silence for a moment, “I hate you. Good luck with your menagerie of psychos, because you’re on your own.”

Chastity watched Lisa storm off before saying, “Soooooo… when’s the wedding? Can I be the ring bearer? Wait, no, can I be-”

Simultaneously, Flor started to ask, “Hey is it okay if I tortu- I mean, play with your henchmen? Because I’m bored and-”

“Taaaaaaaaaayloooooooor!” whined Roman. “Juliet won’t stay on her side of Leviathan!”

“I’m not touching you~” crowed Juliet as she waved her lighter an inch from his face.

Candy pulled on Taylor’s sleeve. “Hey Taylor, Darlene and I ate all the ice cream in the drawer marked ‘Taylor Only’. Can you get us some more? Pleeaaaaaaseeeeeeeee.”

With a dazed expression, Taylor said, “I’ve made a huge mistake.”

Chapter Text

Colin suppressed a yawn as he placed the briefing packets on the conference table. The table gave out a groan of protest and swayed slightly. Colin let out a scoff at the shoddy workmanship. “This packet is on Tailor, the leader of the Guild of Calamitous Intent. Unfortunately, I've only had the last few days to investigate her and her activities, so it is rather brief.”

“Armsmaster, this document looks like it's three hundred pages thick,” complained Assault.

“Two hundred and eighty-nine,” corrected Colin. “Like I said, I had to make it brief.”

“And the way you organized this is rather… chaotic,” said Dauntless, the prick.

“That’s what the index is for,” he snapped in irritation. Damn that newcomer Dauntless, who did he think he was? Dauntless had only been a hero for fourteen years compared to Colin’s fifteen!

“Why is there an index for your index?” asked Dauntless.

Colin didn’t remember doing that, but he wasn’t going to show weakness in front of Dauntless, “That should be blindingly obvious.” After a moment of awkward silence, Colin continued, “Anyway, the point of this meeting is for me to go over the highlights of the file with you all to make sure you can comprehend what is written.”

“Okay but what is the point of this briefing anyway? She has fucking Leviathan under her thumb, what are we even going to do?” asked Assault.

Colin resisted the urge to verbally rip Assault a new asshole, and said through clenched teeth, “That will be made clear during the briefing. Now, if you’re done making asinine observations, flip to section A8-Q4-P9.” He waited a couple of minutes in growing frustration for them to find the correct page. Cretins.

“From what I could tell, she entered the cape scene sometime between February and March when she made her first move, seizing control of the Undersiders. I believe that she targeted them since she wanted to stay undetected for long as possible. The Undersiders were a low priority for us and the other parahuman elements around the city, making them a perfect target for a hostile takeover,” said Colin.

“What makes you think she forced them to work for her?” asked Miss Militia.

“Around this time, the Undersiders’ modus operandi suddenly changed. They went from small time heists to picking fights with the ABB. I believe that Tailor was seeking to destroy the ABB, and she succeeded. I find it unlikely that they willingly changed from doing low stakes robberies to attacking Lung.”

Velocity frowned and said, “What are you talking about? You took down Lung and the ABB imploded shortly after. Literally.”

“That’s exactly what Tailor wants us to think!” growled Colin. “Remember the anonymous call that led me to capturing Lung?”

“You’re not saying it was her?” asked Velocity, understanding dawning in his eyes.

“But I am. As much as it pains me to admit it, she used me as a cat’s paw against Lung. We know from her hostages coming to get their bombs removed that Bakuda exploded a week later. They told us that Bakuda had brought in Uber and Leet to help kill the Undersiders, but they all exploded before the Undersiders had even showed up. At the time, we assumed that Leet had gotten them all killed due to his incompetence, but now I am sure it was the machinations of Tailor.”

Everybody nodded around the table slowly. “That does make sense,” agreed Velocity.

“Not only that, but Oni Lee hasn’t been seen since, so there is no doubt in my mind that Tailor killed him as well. In less than a week, Tailor and her Guild destroyed the ABB. We also have witnesses that saw the Undersiders raid ABB stashes of everything of value during this time period. She played us all like puppets on her strings.”

“That’s… pretty disturbing when you lay it out that way,” noted Battery.

“It gets worse. I’m positive that she is behind the Echidna event that drew in Leviathan. Turn to section Whisky-Tango-Foxtrot,” said Colin grimly.

“…Why are we looking at a list of erotic fanfiction of you and Dragon?” asked Battery. Colin blinked and looked down at his binder. When had he done that? Piggot was giving him the stink eye now. Fuck.

“Uh… You see… she…” started Colin before trailing off and staring into space. He vaguely recalled that Dragon had tried to convince him that drugs weren’t the answer to all of life's problems. Then one day she couldn’t meet his eyes anymore without blushing. This was probably related somehow, but Colin couldn’t think of how. 

“…Armsmaster? Armsmaster? Armsmaster!”

Colin jerked back to attention. He had almost fallen asleep right then. “Sorry, lost in thought.” He pumped his body with more stimulants and then lied, “I apologize, I had forgotten that section was encrypted so that enemy agents couldn’t get their hands on the information within.”

Miss Militia raised a skeptical eyebrow at him, “Armsmaster, when was the last time you slept?”

Colin had spent the last eight days without sleep so that he could gather all the info he needed to defeat Tailor. She was so many steps ahead of him already that if he wasted a single moment, he would never catch her. 

“I don’t see how that is relevant,” Colin replied flatly. “Back to the subject at hand, Tailor unleashed Echidna into Brockton Bay deliberately in order to draw in an Endbringer.”

“You really think she would be reckless enough to lure Leviathan into town on purpose to gain control over him?” asked Miss Militia, perturbed.

“Nothing else makes sense. The clones at the start of the fight were made up of the Undersiders and the Travelers, founding members of the Guild of Calamitous Intent. Echidna disabled Leviathan during their fight, only for Tailor to seize control of him less than a week later. After the fight, Echidna vanished without a trace. Her clones are still roaming around town, which implies that she is still in Brockton, hidden somewhere. Given her size and appearance, there is no way she would be able to pull that off without allies.”

Piggot nodded in agreement. “You're right. There are too many coincidences for it to be anything but deliberate on Tailor’s part. Do you know how she was able to seize control of Leviathan?”

“Yes and no. Panacea was there when it happened and claims she saw Tailor hire Leviathan with some video games and a couch, but I believe that was a ruse on Tailor’s part,” said Colin with a hint of scorn. “Panacea isn’t exactly the most… observant of individuals. I believe that she already had Leviathan under her sway before she and Panacea arrived.”

“That stands to reason," Piggot said. "The idea that all it took to take control of Leviathan was a couple hundred dollars’ worth of stuff is ludicrous. But then why would Tailor bother with the smoke screen?”

“I don’t know, but seeing as how Tailor has outmaneuvered us so far, it must certainly be a trap of a most diabolical nature,” said Colin. “Panacea is also our only living witness to have seen Tailor, unmasked no less. Fortunately, Panacea was willing to give us a thorough description of Tailor,” stated Colin as he scratched at the stubble on his chin. 

Piggot flipped the page and stared at it for a second. “It just says ‘She is a punk ass bitch’.” Colin gave Piggot a nod of confirmation, leading her to let out a sigh. “…Was she able to give us any actual details about what she actually looked like?”

“Yes,” said Colin with another nod. “If you turn to page negative fourteen, you’ll see the picture our sketch artist made from Panacea’s description.”

It took several moments of his so-called peers trying and failing before they finally found the page. “Armsmaster, you gave us the wrong page number. This is a picture of what looks like an overweight Kermit the Frog with glasses and a wig,” said Miss Militia. “Are you sure you don’t need a nap?”

“Naps are for the weak,” grunted Colin. “And that is the correct page. The image is just as Panacea described it to our sketch artist. Panacea even said, and I quote, ‘That looks just like the Bitch’.”

Piggot frowned down at the image. “So we are dealing with a Case 53 then? It's no wonder that she's been trying to keep a low profile. With an appearance like that, we could track her movements easily.”

Colin smiled and replied, “Exactly what I was thinking. She only revealed her presence and her trump card to us after the Nine forced her hand. Even then, she waited for the Nine to cull all of the rival gangs before acting. As you can see, we are dealing with a criminal mastermind who is capable of adjusting her plans on the fly.”

“…Since Tailor…” Colin trailed off as the walls of the conference room started melting. The dripping plaster came together to form the words: ‘Go the fuck to sleep Colin.’ Colin scoffed to himself. It would be a cold day in hell when Colin let his sleep deprived hallucinations boss him around!

Colin shook his head vigorously. “Since Tailor has gained control of Leviathan, several villainous groups have joined her organization. We were able to confirm with Watchdog’s help that major gangs from the nearby cities, such as the Ambassadors, Blastgerm, and the Teeth, are now allied with the Guild of Calamitous Intent. There have also been sightings of the Crowley branch of the Fallen migrating up towards us.”

“Are we getting reinforcements?” asked Velocity, his voice shaking slightly.

Piggot scowled and said, “I have put in a request for them, but apparently no one is eager to go to the city with Leviathan in it.”

“We are so fucked,” muttered Assault morosely. “Do you have any more bad news for us, Armsmaster?”

“We now know that Tailor recently killed Heartbreaker and forced his children into her organization. I’m sure that you have all heard about what happened up at the border with her and the Heartbroken,” said Colin with a shudder. Dragon was still inconsolable. There was a moment of respectful silence for the victims of the Moose Massacre.

“Why would she even need Heartbreaker’s children if she already has control of Leviathan?” asked Battery.

“Leviathan is her hammer and the children are her scalpel,” explained Colin. “If she needs someone alive but under her control, they are the perfect tool. I wouldn’t be surprised if she is already subverting city officials to her whim as we speak. On a similar note, we have already seen her willingness to force parahumans into her organization, leading me to believe that she intends to press gang independents like Parian and Anne the Bug Girl into the Guild of Calamitous Intent.”

Miss Militia let out a small sound of horror. “Not Anne! She’s had such a hard life and is such a sweet girl.”

Colin nodded grimly. “If we don’t act to stop Tailor soon, innocents will suffer.”

“Do we know what she plans on doing with all these forces that she is gathering?” asked Piggot.

Colin nodded and said, “Yes. For some reason, they have been putting up advertisements all around town announcing their intentions. I have placed a copy on page 9 ¾.”

After another few minutes of struggling to find the page, they managed to flip to the advertisement in question.

Join the Guild of Calamitous Intent Today!

Written by B.C.B.

Are you tired of getting your teeth punched out by Heroes and your boss doing nothing about it? Then do we have good news for you! The Guild of Calamitous Intent is dedicated to bringing workers’ rights to hardworking henchpeople everywhere! We are currently operating in the New England area, but we are hoping to expand all across North America! Benefits include:

-Health, Dental, and Eye Insurance! Family Coverage included!

-We will provide you with a financial advisor and match up to 6% contribution to 401k!’

-Paid sick leave and vacation days! Have paid leave on federal holidays!

-And so much more!

Warning: Villainous acts committed by non-Guild personnel in a Guild-run city will result in prompt and professional execution.

“As you can see, they are planning on seizing control of all of the villain groups in North America,” said Colin somberly. “For what dark purpose, we can only guess.”

“Do we know who this B.C.B. is?” asked Dauntless.

“…I have been unable to ascertain their identity so far,” Colin grudgingly admitted. Damn that Dauntless and his constant need to undermine Colin!

“You should destroy this upstart before he eats you and takes your place,” hissed the floating severed head of Hero, blood dripping from his empty sockets. Drip. Drip. Colin considered this sensible advice for a moment before deciding against it. For now…

“So, we know what she has been doing up until now and what she probably is planning to do next,” said Miss Militia. “But do we know what her power is?”

“I’ve considered several options. The first is that she is a Master, but I find that unlikely. Endbringers are notoriously immune to Master effects. Next, I thought she might have some form of bug control due to her name. When I first heard the name Tailor, the first thing that logically came to mind was the ability to weave webs. I later dismissed the idea, since it is preposterous that she seized control of the city and an Endbringer using only bugs.”

"Logically?" Assault muttered to himself.

“It then came to me that her name hinted at a Thinker power that lets her weave intricate plots, much like Accord does. However, after further consideration, I realized that still didn’t explain how she had taken control of Leviathan. But I was sure that I was on the right track, which allowed me to finally stumble onto what her power must certainly be.”

Colin paused for dramatic effect before he revealed the terrible truth, “Her power lets her come up with foolproof plans that are fed to her step by step, allowing her to achieve victory every time. I give her power a threat rating of Thinker 12. I call it the Path to Victory.”

“That’s…” said Piggot with wide eyes. “That’s the stupidest fucking thing that I've ever heard. Colin, go to bed.”

“No! You need to listen to me! If we don’t act now… Wait, Tailor's already gotten to you, hasn't she!?” exclaimed Colin in panic. His eyes flicked from person to person as he backed up against the wall. “You’ve all been Mastered by the Guild of Calamitous Intent! There's no other possible reason you would turn against me like this!”

“Armsmaster, you need to calm down,” said Miss Militia.

“You'd like that wouldn’t you!? Wouldn’t you?!” shrieked Colin hysterically.

“Uh… yes? I would,” she replied.

“Don’t listen to her Colin,” boomed Hero, the only severed head that Colin could trust. “They plan on taking you as well. You must resist! RESIST!”

“I knew it!” Colin hissed. Colin was the only sane man in a world that had gone mad. “I’m declaring Master/Stranger protocols on all of you!”

Piggot let out a sigh and addressed Miss Militia, “Would you please tranq him before he does something foolish?”

Miss Militia conjured a tranquilizer gun, aiming it at Colin. Colin tried to dodge out of the way, but lack of sleep had dulled his reflexes and Miss Militia nailed him in the chin. “No! I have to stop her and save us all! I’m… I’m the… only… the only one… who…” Colin felt his whole-body tilt sideways, seconds before the floor rushed up at him… 

...

Piggot’s eyes throbbed as her migraine grew in intensity. “Does anybody have any ideas on how to deal with Tailor?” she asked as some of her PRT officers dragged Armsmaster off to the infirmary.

There was a moment of silence before Velocity sheepishly said, “No? She’s got an Endbringer.”

Piggot wanted to rip his head off and shove it up his ass, but she couldn’t disagree with what he said either. “Well, we need to come up with something.” Nobody said anything, damn them. Piggot glared furiously at nothing in particular when Renick came into the conference room. “What?” snapped Piggot.

Renick looked apprehensive and confused as he walked up to her, holding out a folder. “We… uh, got a message from the Chief Director.”

Piggot reluctantly reached out and took it from his hands. The folder was marked 'Policy for Dealing With The Guild Of Calamitous Intent'. Piggot flipped the folder and stared at the words on the page in incomprehension for a minute of before she blurted out, “What the fuck?”

Chapter Text

Rebecca stared at the assortment of documents spread across her desk in frustration. She had been going over them for hours, but she still wasn’t sure how to deal with Taylor Hebert and her pet Endbringer. Rebecca had already discussed the possibility of killing her with Contessa and Doctor Mother before they had all decided against it. Killing Hebert could cause Leviathan to revert to his genocidal behavior, causing more death than if she was alive. They would only kill her if she started using Leviathan to wipe large chunks of the population.

What Rebecca needed to do was make sure that Cauldron gained control of Tailor without her losing control of Leviathan. Contessa couldn’t help her plan this out thanks to Leviathan being a blind spot in her path, so it was up to Rebecca to puzzle this out. She stared blankly at the wall for a few minutes before letting out a growl. “Come on Rebecca, you’re smart enough to figure this out! You’re Alexandria and the Director of the PRT…”

…

“Hi, I’m here for the job interview!” greeted Rebecca cheerfully. Rebecca had taken off her forty-something makeup and replaced it with her teen makeup. Rebecca didn’t have a lot of information to use for extrapolating Tailor’s personality, so she was going to have to wing it. However, Tailor was a teen, and they were always rebelling against adults, so presenting herself as a teen was the smart move. Ah makeup, what problems couldn’t it solve?

“Interview?” replied Tailor, bits of sloppy joe flying out of her mouth into a basin made of swarming bugs. “I don’t remember anything about an interview.”

“I’m here to apply for the secretarial position,” explained Rebecca as she stuck out her hand. “My name’s Becky.”

Tailor stared at her hand blankly before she said doubtfully, “I don’t think we have an opening for that position… or any position. Wait, how did you get past all my guards? I explicitly told them I wasn’t to be disturbed during Sloppy Joesday.”

“I snuck past them,” admitted Rebecca with shrug. “I’m really eager for this job.”

Tailor frowned as she rubbed her chin in thought. “Well, you're definitely passionate, but why would I need a secretary? I already have a Lisa to do all my work for me.”

“Well she clearly isn’t doing a very good job if she let me break into your base and harass you during Sloppy Joesday, now is she?” pointed out Rebecca. “If I was your secretary, I would have broken their neck already.”

“You raise a valid point Beckster; can I call you Beckster?” asked Tailor.

Absolutely not. “Well I-”

“Great, Beckster it is,” interrupted Tailor.

Rebecca held in a sigh. ‘ You're doing this for the fate of all Earths Rebecca. ’

“So, Beckster, what would you say is your greatest strength?” asked Tailor with steepled fingers.

Rebecca considered Tailor for a moment, and mentally deduced what Tailor wanted to hear the most. “I am extremely proactive to the point that my bosses in the past have complained that I do all their work for them and make them look bad,” she replied.

Tailor's eyes took on an interested gleam. “I can assure you that won’t be a problem around here,” she replied.  Got her .

“Hey Tailor, are you busy?” asked a brown-haired teenage girl, her head sticking through the door with some douche in a top hat trailing behind her.

“No, but that also isn’t an invitation to bother me, just so you know,” replied Tailor, sounding irritated. “Does nobody respect the sanctity of Sloppy Joesday?”

“Ah, sorry. Don’t worry, I won’t take up much of your time. I just wanted to thank you for helping me get my body back,” she said with a smile. “I know it must have taken a lot of work to pull it off. It really means a lot to me since I know how much you hate doing anything.”

“You’re welcome,” replied Tailor humbly. “I was happy to help.”

Rebecca watched the pair leave. “What was that about?” she asked.

“No fucking clue,” said Tailor with a shrug. “I figure it’s probably something I pawned off- I mean, delegated to Lisa, and like all proper bosses, I naturally deserve all the credit.”

“I think it's a sign of a good manager to delegate all of their work,” Rebecca said flatteringly. “It shows that they know how to prioritize their time.”

Taylor looked positively delighted, “You know what Beckster? You’re-”

Rebecca heard a choking noise off to the side. Her eyes flicked over and she saw a blonde teenager that she was pretty sure was Tattletale. “That’s Rebecca Costa-Brown, the head of the PRT!”

Tailor raised her eyebrows at Tattletale and said, “Lisa, don’t be ridiculous, why in the world would the head of a government agency be applying for a secretarial position? Don’t get me wrong, our dental plan is good, but it isn’t that good.”

“Also, she's like, super old,” drawled Rebecca.

“Holy shit! She’s also Alexandria!” cried out Tattletale. “How have I never noticed that they have a similar voice before?!”

“Okay, now you're just being silly. Everybody knows Costa-Brown and Alexandria had a secret love affair back in the nineties. There was that leaked photos of them making out at that PRT party, remember?” said Tailor as her bug basin rose up into the air and turned into a funnel, pouring the fallen bits of meat into her mouth.

“They made such a cute couple,” Rebecca added in a fake gushing voice. Oh god, were those pictures still floating around? That had been the last time Rebecca had ever asked Contessa to help solidify her cover. 

Tattletale opened and closed her mouth repeatedly before she let out a scream of pure frustration and stalked off.

“Wow, Lisa is really losing it,” said Tailor sounding a little worried. “She must be working too hard. Fuck it, you’re hired.” 

Rebecca smirked. And Kurt had said she was crazy for trying to run a triple life. Suck it, Kurt.

…

Phase one of the plan was a resounding success. Sure, Tattletale had almost died from a rage-induced aneurysm, but that was just one of the many dangers of working for Tailor. Phase two had to go through some changes when Rebecca realised that the Guild of Calamitous Intent turned out to be a wonderful tool for seizing control of North America. She couldn’t not use it. Rebecca was now planning on turning the Guild into a dark mirror of the PRT. With the two organizations controlling both sides of the cape scene, they could cut down on the number of parahuman deaths and be more prepared for the final fight against Scion.  

To accomplish this, Rebecca needed Tailor to sign off on several of her proposals. The problem was, however, that there was something off with the girl. Rebecca was about seventy percent sure that all the facial expressions and body language that Tailor projected were faked in one way or another. The only thing Rebecca could tell for sure was that Tailor hated doing anything.

She had no way of knowing how Tailor was going to react to her first proposal: making the unwritten rules official Guild of Calamitous Intent policy. She was going to have to use all her cunning and skill to make sure that Tailor signed off on it. “Excuse me Tailor, could you sign some paperwork for me? It’s for-”

“Yeah sure,” said Tailor, not even looking up from her sandwich as a mass of bugs grabbed Rebecca’s pen and signed the forms. “Also, no need to be formal and call me 'Tailor'. Just call me Taylor.”

“Sure thing… Taylor?” replied Rebecca, feeling strangely disappointed.  

…

“Accord, we're going to need you to merge your organization with the Guild of Calamitous Intent,” said Rebecca in her Alexandria costume, trying to keep the apology out of her voice. Sure, Accord was a mass murdering control freak, but nobody deserved having Taylor inflicted upon them. Unfortunately for him, it was necessary for phase three of the Plan. If she was going to expand the Guild of Calamitous Intent’s reach across North America, she was going to need his homicidal anal retentiveness to keep track and manage all of their members.

“This is the group who controls Leviathan and destroyed the Nine, correct? I've only heard rumors about their leader, Tailor, each one more absurd than the last,” said Accord with a frown. “If I am to work with her, I need to know what this Tailor is really like, and if  I can tolerate working with her.”

Even with her perfect recall, Rebecca struggled to think of a single positive thing that she could say about Taylor. There was a long period of awkward silence. “She's very good at thinking outside of the box,” she finally said. It was certainly true. Rebecca had been in the room when Tailor realized that she could have her bugs do the chewing for her. Rebecca could never forget that. She really wished she could. “She finds solutions to problems that most people don’t even realize are problems.”

“I see…” mused Accord. “That is a trait that would be very useful to have in a leader. If I were to join her organization, would I be able to continue with my other projects?”

“Most assuredly. Tailor has a very… hands-off management style. She encourages her employees to work on their own initiative,” replied Rebecca. “Another benefit of joining the Guild of Calamitous Intent is that, since she essentially has Brockton Bay held hostage to her whims, you could implement your plans to run a city perfectly without the authorities interfering.”

Accord considered her words in perfect silence for a moment. “Very well then. I look forward to meeting her.”

‘Oh boy.’

…

Rebecca rolled her eye as she read through the tenth cease and desist letter from Narwhal — that woman was relentless — when she noticed a giant pendulum blade scything down towards Tailor’s head. Rebecca felt her heart stop as the blade missed Taylor's head by a quarter inch. “Are you okay?” she asked stupidly.

Taylor stared at Rebecca with bloodshot eyes as the blade swung back past her head a second time and growled, “Am I okay?! I haven’t had a good nap in since those brats moved in! They also keep finding my ice cream stashes. I keep hiding them in more and more elaborate hiding places, but they just keep getting to them!” Taylor stomped a foot onto the ground.

The tile floor under her foot sunk into the ground and there was a loud click. An instant later, an arrow zoomed past Taylor and flew down the hallway. “ Argh! Son of a bitch! Who the fuck is shooting arrows!?” screamed out one of the Guild minions, whose name nobody had bothered to learn.

“Also, these death traps you installed in the base are getting a little old. I mean, I get that this is a super villain base and death traps are the norm, but this is like the nineteenth trap to almost kill me in the last couple of days, you know? This seems a little over the top to me,” said Taylor as whoever that was limped their way towards the infirmary.

“Taylor, why would you assume that it was me that placed death traps all over the base?” asked Rebecca.

Taylor shrugged and said, “Well it seems pretty on brand for you? Don’t be offended or anything, but you’re the craziest person I know, Beckster.” That was rich coming from this human trash bag. “Like, yesterday I saw you washing the dishes, instead of throwing them in the sink for Lisa to do like a sane person.”

“Not wanting to live in filth is normal ,” argued Rebecca.

“Sure it is,” said Taylor, with fingers crossed behind her back. “Whatever you say, Becks.”

Rebecca pinched the bridge of her nose, “Look, I didn’t put death traps all around the base. That was Accord.”

“What? Why would he do that?” asked Taylor. “What have I ever done to the man?”

Rebecca grimaced. The meeting between him and Taylor hadn’t exactly gone well. “…You showed up to the meeting five hours late, and when you finally did arrive, you got sick all over him from all those sloppy joes you ate earlier.”

“Ugh what a whiner. So what you’re saying is that I'm going to have to kill him or dodge his death traps for the rest of my life?” asked an irritated Taylor.

Rebecca had to nip that thought in the bud before Taylor went on another murder spree. “You could kill him, but he's currently doing ninety percent of your paperwork.”

Taylor paled. “Dodging death traps it is! Also, I have to ask, why are you dressed up as Alexandria?”

Shit. Fuck . “I’m really into cosplay?” blurted out Rebecca. ‘ Goddamnit Rebecca, is that the best you can come up with?’

“Neat,” said Tailor with complete disinterest. “Anyway, Becks my man, I need you to babysit those kids for a few hours before I go Cain on all their asses.”

Rebecca had never babysat children before, but she had run bootcamps for problem Wards, so she was confident that she could handle this. “Sure, thing Boss.”

…

“-And those are the rules and guidelines of Guild membership. Any questions?” Rebecca asked the various villains sitting around the meeting table. Rebecca was in a foul mood. She had spent five hours yesterday with those little monsters before Bitch had come to the rescue with her spray bottle. The girl was surprisingly good with children. 

Despite not wanting to deal with these assholes, Phase Four required her to instruct all the villains about the new Written Rules. Rebecca idly played with a paperclip as she waited for one of these pieces of shit to start objecting. 

Rebecca wasn’t surprised when Jake Crowley, the Fallen jackass stood up. She remembered when this fuckface and his goons had shown up at an Endbringer funeral service to heckle the families of the dead. Crowley opened his mouth, “Yeah, who the fuck are y-” He was interrupted when Rebecca casually flicked the paper clip through his skull, causing his head to explode. Ah, catharsis.

Rebecca gave a sunny smile, “Any more questions?” 

The various villains stared at her in tense silence before the Butcher sneered. “You don’t intimidate me, woman! If you kill me, then you'll just become another Butcher!”

“You raise an excellent point,” replied Rebecca. “Here is my rebuttal. Door.”

Butcher blinked and in that moment a portal opened at her feet, pulling her in. Have fun on Earth Zayin, the worst of all possible Earths were Disco never died. 

A red-eyed Blasto took another drag of his joint and slowly raised his hand into the air. Rebecca motioned for him to speak. “Hey, hey, would it be cool with you if I like… cloned Leviathan?”

Rebecca stared at him incredulously. “What... I don’t…”

Blasto continued rambling as if he didn’t hear her, “I could make little mini-Leviathans and we could sell them as pets to children.”

“Absolutely not!” shouted Rebecca.

“But think of the children!” argued Blasto.

“Yessssssss, the children,” hissed Genoscythe the Eyeraper. “Are we allowed to eat children?”

Rebecca's eye twitched.

…

“Oh god! It doesn’t bend that way! No no no nononononono! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! I give! I give! Wait no! Please! No, not the other one—”

…

“Well! Hopefully that clears everything up!” said Rebecca cheerfully as she flicked the blood off her hands onto the screaming, mangled form of Genoscythe. “Any more questions?”  

There weren’t any.

…

“Good news Boss! I was able to secure a government grant to help fund the Guild of Calamitous intent!” declared Rebecca. “It took some fierce negotiations with Director Costa-Brown to pull it off, but fortunately, she's as reasonable as she is sexy. All we have to do is provide villains for their new Nemesis program.” 

“So, the PRT will pay us to attack them?” asked Taylor. 

“Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, but essentially, yes!” said Rebecca. Phase Five was a work of genius on her part. “There are going to be special rules of engagement and a monthly crime quota that members of the Guild can’t exceed. Also-”

Taylor squinted at her, “Okay, but why though?”

Rebecca blinked in surprise. Taylor had never seemed to care why Rebecca had done anything before now. “You had me write up all of those posters declaring that we are going to take over North America and place them all over town declaring that you planned to do just that. That’s going to take a lot of money.”

Taylor nodded to herself, “Right, that sounds familiar. I’m going to be honest with you for a second.”

“That would be a first,” muttered Rebecca.

“Rude. Anyway, I mostly started this whole thing because I thought it would piss Lisa off,” explained Taylor. “This whole conquering everything sounds like a lot of work just to mess with Lisa.”

Rebecca’s mind raced as she tried to think of a way to keep the Plan on track. Then it came to her. It was twisted and evil, but it would work. You couldn't make an omelet without commiting crimes against humanity. “If the Guild controls all of North America that means you control the entire villain population. You can make them do whatever you want under the threat of death.”

“Ok, don’t get me wrong, there certainly is an appeal to a giant slave army, but what would I even do with one?” asked Taylor. 

“Just think of all the power combinations that would be at your fingertips! You already managed to cut down on your workload with just a couple dozen parahumans. Just imagine how much less you would have to do with thousands!”

Taylor's eyes widened. “Beckster, you’re a genius! I’m sorry I ever doubted you! Conquer away!” declared Taylor before promptly passing out.

Chapter Text

Everett took a deep breath to calm himself. He had to relax, he could do this. He was Tecton. He was the leader of the Chicago Wards. This was his time to shine. He and his team were going to take a stand and drive the Guild of Calamitous Intent out of Chicago. Their reign of tyranny would come to an end. His interesting and likable team would show that they had what it takes to go the distance and-

SUDDEN TWO-YEAR TIME SKIP OUT NOWHERE

“…I always hated the blank… slates,” echoed out Broadcast.

The Entity paused to listen to the message Broadcast was sending out. Broadcast always gave such good life advice, such as 'murder everyone' or 'torture and then murder everyone'. What a swell shard! The Entity was prepared to take in its sage wisdom when Queen Administrator’s host started screaming at it. “YOU! Yes, you!" The Entity turned around to face the host. "Yeah, I'm talking to you; you giant gold turd! If there's one person in the world I hate the most, it would be you!”

This wasn’t the first time the Entity had been railed at by one of the humans. ‘Scion, why did you spend ten hours picking up trash while the city was on fire?’ ‘Scion, stop saving that cat from a tree, this mugger is stabbing me!’ ‘Scion, put on pants!’ Humans could be so needy.  

It found that the optimal strategy was just to let the humans wear themselves out with the screaming and flailing. They usually got bored or died after a few minutes. After Queen Administrator's host was done, it could go back to listening to Broadcast’s undoubtedly life-changing message.

When the Entity gave the Queen Administrator’s host a cursory examination — she appeared to be some sort of human-frog hybrid — it noticed that Queen Administrator appeared to be broken. It was currently lying down and gently weeping shard tears in despair. ‘How in the universes had that happened?’ Now the frog person had piqued the Entity’s curiosity, so it decided to pay more attention to what it had to say. If she had the ability to destroy a shard’s will to live, then she clearly was somebody to learn from.

“You’re the evilest, sickest fuck that has ever had the misfortune of being born! You bastard! What kind of monster just does things twenty-four seven without pause!? You’re the worst kind of person that could ever exist: a workaholic!” She spat out the last word with so much venom that the Entity was taken aback. What was wrong with doing things? The Entity liked doing things! 

…Didn't it? It had been doing things for years now and yet it still felt empty… 

“You’re the culmination of everything that is wrong with humanity! Humans have spent millennia developing technology so that we could do nothing! We invented chairs so we wouldn’t have to stand! We enslaved horses so we would be free of the tyranny of walking. We created porn so we wouldn’t have to talk to each other!”

The girl paused in her wailing, panting for breath. After a few moments, she continued. “But oh no, you just like to go out and save peoples' lives constantly, you son of a bitch. You’ve inspired millions to go out try to make the world a better place when instead they could be taking a nap! You’ve corrupted humanity! When I was a kid, my parents were always nagging me to do my chores! A-And… you know what they said?!” She was nearly in tears now. “They said things like: ‘Scion would do his homework Taylor!’ ‘Scion would wash the dishes Taylor!’ ‘Don’t be lazy Taylor! Be more like Scion!’ You did this to me! You’ve ruined my life!”

“No wonder why you're always alone while you’re out saving people! Everybody's so disgusted by you that they can’t even stand your presence! I bet you don’t have any friends! Nobody could ever love you! If I was your wife, I would fling myself towards the ground and splatter myself all over the place just to get away from you!”

Well that was just uncalled for! The Counterpart had liked the Entity! They had splattered themselves on the surface of Earth, but it hadn’t been out of spite! It had been an accident! Sure, the Counterpart had been the mastermind of the pair, but she could have totally failed to notice that planet in its way. Yep, totally plausible. The Entity wasn’t crying at all.

No. The Entity didn’t have to take this insult lying down! Not from a human! It raised its hand into the air, prepared to blast the host into smithereens, when they muttered out four words that barely reached its ears. The Entity paused as the words sunk in. Its arm dropped to its side. It was shocked to the core, feeling numb as the words reverberated through its skull.

“You Needed To Chillax.”

The Entity floated there in the void of space, stunned. Its mind tried to grasp what it had just heard. The last thirty planetary revolutions of doing things hadn’t ever made its life fulfilling. It had never occurred to it to just not do things. Now that it thought about it the whole cycle thing had gone nowhere. Had it actually wasted its entire life?

When was the last time the Entity had taken a nap? It had to have been within the last century, right? It couldn’t remember. The Queen’s host was right. Doing things was pointless. A couple century long nap sounded like the thing to do. The Entity couldn’t be bothered to maintain its avatar any longer as it drifted off to sleep.

…

Fortuna blinked as she got a text from Dinah Alcott. ‘End of the world averted!!!! \ ._. /’ it said. Fortuna let out a sigh of relief. Dinah Alcott’s plan to dump Tailor, the conqueror of North America, into the middle of Jack Slash’s army of clones to save the world from Scion’s rampage had somehow worked. 

Curiosity picked at Fortuna. She needed to know what had happened. She could, of course, use her power to discover how Tailor had done it, but she hesitated. No. Fortuna would speak to her, face to face. She needed to do this herself without the Path guiding her hand. “Door.”

Fortuna stepped through the portal and looked upon the savior of the human race. She was lying down on the ground, surrounded by dozens of broken and dead clones.  Jack Slash’s shattered and crying form gurgled out, “K…Kill me. Please, before she rem…embers that I’m here.” Fortuna shrugged to herself and blew his brains out. She had been wanting to do that for years. 

Fortuna was mildly interested in how Tailor had pulled that off but decided it really didn’t matter how. She had a far more pressing question that needed to be answered.

“Hello Tailor,” greeted Fortuna.

“Sup,” Tailor said with an eerily large smile on her face. It just went on for miles. Fortuna didn’t know that mouths could even be that wide.

“First, I wanted to thank you for saving the world,” said Fortuna. “I can only imagine the great personal cost it took to achieve this. The ugly things you had to do along the way.”

Tailor gave an exhausted nod, “It was the worst. The sacrifices I had to make… I even had to get out of bed and everything!”

Fortuna understood; there were often days where she too didn’t want to get up, what with the weight of all the earths pressing down on her. “Second, I was wondering if you were willing to answer some of my questions?”

“Sure,” she said with a shrug. “I’m in a good mood. I just got to kill the symbol of all humanity's sins. But if I do answer all of your questions, could you do me a favor and carry me back to my base? I’m outside of my body jacker’s range and I haven’t walked in the last couple years, so I’ve kinda forgotten how.”

“Very well, I will bring you back once we are done talking. Speaking of Scion, how did you kill him?” she asked.

“I burned his ass so bad that he died of shame,” she replied smugly. “The little bitch was crying at the end, unlike me. I totally kept my composure.”

Fortuna stared. Was that all it took to defeat humanity's greatest foe? Some nasty words? Fortuna felt strangely numb. “I spent decades of my life making moral compromise after moral compromise to destroy him…” she muttered blankly. “I threw away my name. My sense of self.”

“Can’t compromise your morals if you don’t have any,” said Tailor as she tapped her nose knowingly.

“Was it worth it in the end?” asked Fortuna. “All the sacrifices that you had to make along the way? Would you have done it all over again if you had to? Knowing what you know now?”

Tailor considered the question deeply. “Part of me wants to say no, since I did have to do a lot of awful things. Namely just doing things… but I guess I did make some friends along the way and got sweet vengeance on Scion. So I guess I would do it all again but spend way less effort the next time around,” answered Taylor. “I mean, sure, I half assed everything, but I'll bet I could have quarter assed it if I really put my mind to it.”

“Half assed?” repeated Fortuna, feeling baffled. She couldn’t imagine not throwing her full effort behind her task to save the world. Is that why she had been unable to defeat Scion herself? Had she been trying too hard?

“Yeah, like, do you know how much time I spent walking before I got Alec to do it for me? So many unneeded steps taken,” she said sadly. That was weirdly relatable to Fortuna. “You seem like one of those people that went full ass. Never go full ass.”

“Sure,” muttered Fortuna. “You seem to have accomplished my life’s work in what seems to be a total accident, so clearly I have been doing something wrong. Asking the wrong questions probably.” At Tailor’s puzzled look, Fortuna elaborated. “My power allows me to ask how to accomplish something, and it gives me a path to achieve my goal.”

“I see… did you remember to tack on ‘with the least effort possible’ to all of your paths?” asked Tailor.

Fortuna paused. “Wolf-fucking horseballs!” she cursed. She had been such a fool! If only she had been as wise as Tailor. From this point onward, she would always ask herself: ‘What would Tailor do?’

Tailor gave her a knowing look, “Yeah, hindsight is a bitch isn’t it?”

Fortuna nodded absently to herself, “Thank you for showing me the errors of my ways.”

“You’re welcome,” said Tailor imperiously. “Always remember this: if something is worth doing, get somebody else to do it.”

Fortuna was humbled by Tailor’s wisdom. “Again, thank you for all the advice you have given me. I understand where I went wrong and won't make the same mistakes again. I have no more questions.”

“Great, so are we doing that piggyback ride back to Brockton Bay or what?”

“Door,” said Fortuna, and a door to Brockton Bay opened up.

“Wait, you can just open doors to just, like, anywhere?” asked Tailor with wide eyes.

Fortuna nodded to Tailor. An idea occurred to her. “Since you have destroyed Scion, I think rewarding you with access to Doormaker is more than fair.”

Tailor started openly drooling. “Marry me!” she said.

“Surprise motherfucker!” yelled a red headed girl as she leapt out from the portal, landing on top of Tailor. She wrapped her hands around Tailor’s throat and started to squeeze. She seemed vaguely familiar for some reason. Fortuna’s power informed her that the girl’s name was Emma Barnes, and that she had given her a vial last week. “You may have avoided my last five hundred and forty-six assassination attempts, but I’ve got you this time!”

“What?” gurgled out Tailor in confusion.

“That’s right Tailor! I have been training and preparing for this moment for the past two years! I worked myself to the bone day and night! I stole and sold all of my family’s kidneys so I could afford my superhero vial! Nothing is going to stop my vengeance! But before I spell out your eternal doom… Say! My! Name!”

“C-Cherish?” gasped Tailor.

Emma let out a primal scream, her eyes filled with manic bloodlust, and she started to throttle the life out of Tailor's limp form. “I am going to kill you! This is me killing you right here and now! You motherfucker!”

As she looked over at the screaming and shouting redhead, Fortuna considered helping to save the savior of all Earths ever, but then paused to consider. What Would Tailor Do? she thought. Fortuna shrugged her shoulders and, with a barely audible “door”, flopped through a portal onto her bed, fast asleep. That sounds like work.

Chapter Text